PRAGUE, Sept 13, 2007 (AFP) - Czech engineering company Skoda Praha signed a 3.0-billion-dollar (2.16-billion-euro) contract with the Vietnamese state electricity company to help build a 3,000 MW coal-fired power plant in Vietnam, the Czech ministry of industry confirmed on Thursday.

The power plant, to be sited in the southern province of Tra Vinh, will supply around 20 percent of Vietnam's electricity needs, Vietnamese premier Nguyen Tan Dung said at the start of an official visit on Wednesday.

PRAGUE, Sept 12, 2007 (AFP) - The Czech and Vietnamese premiers on Wednesday backed a project for Czech state controlled power company CEZ to build a 3,000 MW coal-fired power plant in Vietnam.

'We both expressed our support for this project which will be very significiant for cooperation between our two countries,' Vietnamese premier Nguyen Tan Dung said at a news conference on the first day of his official visit.

The power plant would supply around 20 percent of Vietnam's electricity supply needs, Dung added.

PRAGUE, Aug 30, 2007 (AFP) - Czech electricity giant CEZ and Hungarian oil and gas group MOL are seeking to form a major energy partnership aimed at boosting their businesses in Central and Eastern Europe with the possibility that CEZ will buy up to a 10.0 percent of MOL, CEZ said on Thursday.

The companies have signed a deal covering 'the establishment of a strategic alliance,' CEZ confirmed. 'To strengthen that strategic alliance, CEZ is considering the possibility of a capital entry into MOL by the purchase of up to a 10.0 percent stake in the company from it,' it added.

PRAGUE, Aug 30, 2007 (AFP) - Czech electricity giant CEZ and the Hungarian oil and gas group MOL are to form a major energy partnership aimed at boosting their businesses in Central and Eastern Europe, Czech media reported Thursday.

The companies are poised to sign a cooperation deal, the first fruits of which would be the construction of two gas-fired power plants, one in Hungary and the other Slovakia, with a total capacity of 800 MW, according to the online version of the Czech business magazine, euro.