The cabinet will receive a report in coming days on the tender, in which Atomstroiexport and its partners Inter RAO and Turkey’s Park Teknik were the only bidders, Yildiz told CNN Turk in comments broadcast live on Tuesday.

“One way or the other” it will be finalised, he said.

Turkey is reviewing a revised bid by Atomstroiexport, which offered to lower the price of power from the planned nuclear station by 27 percent after demand slumped due to the economic downturn. The revised price of $0.1535 per kilowatt hour is still about double current rates.

The government has guaranteed 15 years of power purchases to encourage investment in the plant, which will cost as much as $8 billion to build and is planned for a site on the Mediterranean.

Turkey wants to have a nuclear power station to cover a looming shortfall in electricity as well as to reduce its dependence on foreign energy imports. Natural gas, of which Turkey has few reserves, fires half of its power plants.

The government sees atomic power meeting 20 percent of Turkey’s power needs by 2030. Turkey has cancelled four previous attempts to build a nuclear plant, beginning in the late 1960s, due to the high cost and environmental concerns.