Mumbai, (IANS) : The Russian makers of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) in Tamil Nadu, on Thursday opened their regional centre here with an aim to boost the company’s market presence in India.

To mark the occasion, the state-run Russian atomic energy corporation, Rosatom, organised a two-day exhibition and conference here in Maharashtra which also has the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.

“To increase the state corporation’s market presence, it decided to open a regional centre in Mumbai,” Rosatom’s (South Asia) Regional President Aleksey Pimenov said at the ceremonial event.

“This will enable us to join forces with our Indian partners and enhance the performance of Russian nuclear enterprises operating in India,” said Pimenov.

“Historically, India is one of our key foreign partners. Two power units of Russian design are already operating in the Kudankulam NPP site and two more are under construction,” he added.

Besides India, the Mumbai office will also be in charge of the company’s projects in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Rosatom already has similar centres in Latin America, Western, Eastern and Central Europe, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North America.

Pimenov said their network of centres is in line with the company’s long-term development strategy, that aims to increase its foreign order portfolio to $190 billion in the next five years.

The first 1000 MW unit of the Kudankulam project was dedicated to the nation on August 10, jointly by Prime Minister Modi and President Vladimir Putin, who had participated at the ceremony from Moscow through video-conferencing.

The second unit at Kudankulam went critical later in August, when the stage of physical start-up was completed successfully, and it is expected to be commissioned in 2016.

The ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of units 3 and 4 was performed in 2016. Russia offered India a new range of reactor units — the VVER-Toi (typical optimised, enhanced information) design — for the third and fourth units.

An agreement between India and Russia was signed in December 2008, for setting up Kudankulam’s units 3 to 6.