The plant produces over 40 percent of the country's power.

The EU, which last week set 2007 as an entry target date for Bulgaria, has said Soviet-design Kozloduy's old reactors could not be made safe at a reasonable cost.

The completion of the halted construction in Belene, 250 km (160 miles) north of Sofia, would cost some $1 billion and the government would seek to attract foreign investors, Energy Minister Milko Kovachev said.

His ministry has already launched talks with investors from Russia, Canada, the United States, the Czech Republic and other West European countries.

The project for the new plant would be ready in the second half of next year, Kovachev told reporters after a government session that had decided to resume Belene's construction.

The building of the 1,000-megawatt Soviet-designed Belene started in the 1980s and 40 percent of the construction work, worth $1 billion, has been completed.

Forty percent of the main equipment, including a reactor, have been supplied, but work was halted in 1990 due to a lack of cash and environmental protests.

In 2000 Bulgaria agreed to shut down Kozloduy's two oldest 440 MW reactors, number one and two, before 2003.

Kovachev said the closure process would start on Friday and the two units would be completely shut down on December 31.

Last month, Sofia also agreed to close Kozloduy's other two 440 MW reactors, numbers three and four, by the end of 2006. This has triggered protests because impoverished Bulgarians fear the closure would raise electricity prices.

Reactors number five and six will remain operational.

Kovachev said the shut down of Kozloduy's first two reactors would not deal a major blow to Bulgarian power exports next year, which should reach 6.0 billion kilowatt hours. This compared with 6.3-6.4 billion kWh of power exports this year.