US-based Westinghouse, France's Areva and Russia's AtomStroyExport are putting the final touches on their offers for the two multi-billion dollar contracts, each of which will be for two of the reactors, the China Daily said.

The three companies have been competing for the projects in eastern Zhejiang and southern Guangdong provinces since the central government gave the go ahead for construction last year.

No timetable for awarding the contracts have been put forward so far.

Two of the reactors will be built in Sanmen in Zhejiang and the others in Yangjiang in Guangdong.

"We are ready to deliver our scheme," Arnaud de Bourayne, president of AREVA China told the newspaper.

Preparations for the French bid began five months ago, he said.

The tender from Westinghouse, which has no nuclear energy presence in China, was boosted over the weekend when the US Export-Import Bank approved some 5.0 billion dollars of loans for the project.

"The US government has done a lot since last year to approve exports of the AP-1000 reactors to China," Liu Xingang, chief representative of Westinghouse China, was quoted as saying.

China plans to increase its nuclear generating capacity from 8,700 megawatts to 36,000 megawatts by 2020, a plan that calls for the building of an average of one 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor a year over the next 16 years.

The ambitious plan is being implemented in an effort to overcome ongoing energy shortages and to build up alternatives to massive coal use which is causing serious air pollution, acid rain and global warming.

By 2020, about four percent of China's total power output will be from nuclear power, up from just under two percent today.

China has nine nuclear power reactors in operation, with two 1,000 megawatt Russian reactors expected to go on-line in the coming months.

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