South Korea and the Czech Republic agreed to cooperate in the latter’s project to build and maintain additional nuclear power plants during their summit Wednesday, paving the way for Korean firms to join the project estimated to be worth more than 10 trillion won ($8.6 billion).

On the occasion of the summit between President Park Geun-hye and her Czech counterpart Milos Zeman, the two sides signed 18 memorandums of understanding on cooperation in science, information and communications technologies, culture, health care and other areas.

Park visited the central European state as part of her seven-day trip to Europe, which also took her to a premier U.N. climate change forum in France. Park became the first Korean president to visit the Czech Republic in 20 years.

Their summit focused on enhancing their strategic partnership as the two nations mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral ties.

Under the agreement to cooperate for the Czech plan to construct new nuclear reactors, the two countries agreed to cooperate in building, running and maintaining the nuclear facilities, as well as in exchanging related technologies.

They also agreed to launch a panel for joint research on the construction of nuclear reactors and joint forays into the market of a third country.

Seoul has long had its eyes on the lucrative project, with the Czech Republic expected to begin the bidding process around 2019. In February when Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka visited Seoul, Park expressed her country’s hopes to join the project.

In interviews with the Czech media, Park said the two countries can achieve a “win-win” outcome should the Czech Republic capitalize on Korea’s nuclear power technologies to construct its power plants.

Observers say that the U.S., Japan, Russia, France and China are all expected to vie alongside Korea for the republic’s nuclear energy project.

Under the series of deals signed Wednesday, the two countries have expanded areas of bilateral cooperation, which had hitherto been limited to the manufacturing sector, to a variety of sectors including health care and medicines.

On Thursday, Park is to attend a summit with the leaders of the “Visegrad Group” of four central European states: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Before flying to Prague, Park visited the UNESCO headquarters and delivered a speech to stress the importance of education to tackle terrorism, extremism and violence.

During the speech, Park also pledged Seoul’s efforts to establish an “objective, democratic” procedure to consult over the UNESCO’s documentary register, while reiterating Seoul’s intention to host the secretariat for the organization’s Memory of the World Committee for the Asia-Pacific.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)