Over the longer term, the Government had proposed to the relevant authorities to restart nuclear power projects and robust development of offshore wind energy.

A focus of this initiative is the exploration of nuclear power, prompted by the need to bolster base load power and minimise environmental impacts.

Following the summit meeting, President Putin said that “a promising area for expanding bilateral cooperation is nuclear energy”.

In the leaders' statements to the media after the summit, President Putin said that "a promising area for expanding bilateral cooperation is nuclear energy", while Vietnamese President To Lam said "we also agreed to explore opportunities for stepping up our cooperation on new energy sources and clean energy, as well as facilitate the green transition and sustainable development".

The parties plan to discuss the current state of and prospects for the continued development of a comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and Vietnam in the trade and economy, scientific and technology, and humanitarian fields, and exchange opinions on relevant items on the international and regional agenda.

Vietnam, which gets most of its power from coal, is rushing to avoid a repeat of last year, when a shortage of the mineral, blistering hot weather and drought forced it to cut electricity to northern industrial parks that house many multinational companies.

The deal will further facilitate Australia's exports of coal and liquefied natural gas to Vietnam, the ministry said in a statement, noting that Australia is now a key coal supplier to Vietnam, accounting for 44% of its total coal imports.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) held a conference in Hanoi on February 22 to deploy Vietnam's hydrogen energy development strategy to 2030 with a vision until 2050.

The deal is also intended to support Vietnam’s new target of accelerating the peaking of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 2030 (from 2035 previously) and reducing its peak annual power sector emissions by up to 30%, to 170 MtCO2eq from 240 MtCO2eq.

Under this baseline scenario, coal would remain the largest source of energy in the country until 2030, with 11 new coal-fired power plants to be built, raising the coal-fired power capacity from over 21 GW in 2020 (nearly 24 GW in 2021) to 30 GW in 2025 and over 36 GW in 2030.