Islamabad: Undeterred by the car bomb attack that killed three Chinese engineers working on a multi-million-Dollar seaport project in Pakistan, Beijing today (May 4, 2004) signed an agreement with Islamabad to construct a second nuclear power plant at Chashma.

The pact to build the 300-megawatt nuclear power plant was signed by the chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Pervez Butt and Vice Minister of Science Technology and Industry for National Defence of China Zhang Huazhu in the presence of Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali.

The deal, which came a day after the car bomb attack on a bus carrying Chinese engineers killed three persons and injured 11 others, was apparently aimed at expressing the two countries' determination to continue their cooperation.

The agreement was initially scheduled to be signed during the visit of President Pervez Musharraf to China in last October. But it was stalled at that time following objections by an American multinational company, which was assisting China to build its power plants.

Pakistani officials said problems arose because China stopped building 300 mw projects and relied on the US company to construct bigger nuclear power plants. Officials reportedly said that today's agreement was signed after over-coming the technical difficulties.

Earlier media reports said the 300-megawatt second power plant at Chashma in Punjab was estimated to cost around Rs 55 billion and China has agreed to extend Rs 30 billion assistance. The remaining money was expected to be generated locally.