Hitachi and General Electric will hive off their nuclear power operations into two joint ventures that will build, maintain and develop nuclear plants and boiling water reactors, with a final deal expected in early 2007.

Hitachi will own 40 percent of the US venture and at least 80 percent of the Japanese venture, with the rest going to its American partner.

The move is part of a growing trend among Japanese companies to buy or ally themselves with foreign multinational energy giants as they seek out promising new growth opportunities in markets such as China, India and Russia.

"By utilizing and sharing our knowledge and experience, we should see synergies to expand our nuclear energy operations in the global market place," Hitachi president Kazuo Furukawa told a joint press conference.

"Hitachi's commitment to compete in the global nuclear energy business is reflected in the 40 percent stake in the American venture," he said.

The Japanese venture will focus on operations in Japan, while the US venture will cover the rest of the world.

The United States turned away from nuclear power after a 1979 meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania. No new reactor has been put into service in the United States since 1996.

Now, however, President George W. Bush's administration wants to relaunch the construction of nuclear reactors in the United States due to the elevated cost of crude oil, whose price has been pushed up in recent years by geopolitical tension and supply concerns.

"We expect the nuclear industry to enter into a new renaissance in the very near future," said Rudolph Villa, the president of Nuclear Energy-Asia, an arm of GE Energy.

Villa described the international nuclear energy business as "exciting" as there were "many plans to build many plants" around the world, particularly in Asia, Europe and the United States.

Hitachi and GE began discussions on a fusion last year, after the US government's policy on purchasing new reactors became clear, officials said.

The Hitachi-GE ventures will try to get contracts for one third of the 25 new reactors that the United States plans to build, Furukawa said.

The tie-up is part of a broader industry realignment, including Toshiba Corp.'s 5.4-billion-dollar purchase of Westinghouse Electric Co. of the US, a long-term Mitsubishi Heavy partner.

Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and French group Areva, meanwhile, agreed last month to team up with an aim to develop a new midsized nuclear reactor within three years and commercialize it within a decade.

General Electric also has an existing nuclear energy contract with Toshiba.

GE chairman Jeffrey R. Immelt recently met Mitsubishi Heavy chairman Takashi Nishioka amid local media reports of a planned partnership between the two firms in nuclear power plant operations.

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