An amendment to the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract for the plant was signed on Friday, concluding the preparatory phase of the project and enabling it to move on to the construction phase, the release said.
The "so-called first concrete moment [will] be realized by the end of next year," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto was quoted as saying in the release.
The release also said that amendments to the financial documents went into effect on August 16.
Russia earlier granted Hungary a deferral for payments on a loan to build the Paks-2 NPP. The relevant changes to the schedule of the intergovernmental agreement published on the official website for legal acts.
The debt must be paid "no later than 30 calendar days after the date on which the present schedule goes into effect." If Hungary pays it on time, it will not be considered overdue, so interest will not be accrued on it, the document said.
Hungary's parliament approved the expansion of the country's only nuclear power plant, the Soviet-designed Paks, in 2009 with the construction of another two generating units. The cost of the project was estimated at 12.5 billion euros. In 2014, Moscow and Budapest signed an agreement on a long-term loan of up to 10 billion euros for the construction of Paks-2.
Hungary's Atomic Energy Authority granted Russian state corporation Rosatom a permit to build the fifth and sixth generating units of the Paks plant at the end of August 2022. In May 2023, the European Commission approved amendments to the agreement on the construction and financing of the project.
Rosatom said earlier that the first concrete at Paks-2 could be poured in 2024.
