On 18 January 2008, Atomstroyexport and Bulgaria's National Electric Company (NEC) signed the contract for the design, construction and installation of units 1 and 2 of the Belene NPP. On 3 September 2008, the construction of the Belene NPP officially started. According to the Minister of Energy Petar Dimitrov, the Belene plant would operate "the most secure reactors existing in the world"; he also asserted that "the chance there would be a failure in those reactors is practically zero". Prime Minister Stanishev and Minister Dimitrov also called the project "a Renaissance for Bulgaria's nuclear energy" and "the largest industrial project in Bulgaria in the last eighteen years". More than 10,000 construction workers would be employed in the project, with the first reactor expected to be operating by the end of 2013, the second by the end of 2014.