( dpa ) - South African President Thabo Mbeki and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will discuss South Africa's energy crisis during the French leader's visit to the country at the head of a business delegation later this week, officials said Tuesday.
Sarkozy's visit come after French nuclear giant Areva and US group Westinghouse Electric last month submitted competing bids to build a 120-billion-rand (15.8 billion dollar) nuclear power station in South Africa.
The plant, which would be South Africa's second nuclear power facility, would produce double the electricity - 3500 megawatts - of the Koeberg plant built by Areva in the Western Cape.
South African has been wracked by power outages caused by a shortage of generating capacity since early January. Eskom has said it could spent 1.3 trillion rand over the next 20 years to add new capacity.
Areva has submitted a bid to build two 1,600-megawatt third- generation pressurised-water reactors and expressed ambitions to build more.
Apart from the "energy challenges" Mbeki and Sarkozy will also discuss French investment in South Africa and French support for conflict resolution in Sudan, Chad and other African countries, a statement from the Foreign Ministry in Pretoria said.
Asked whether Sarkozy would be accompanied by his new wife, former supermodel Carla Bruni, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Manusha Pillai said: "As far as I know, yes."
The visit would be the first official overseas visit by Bruni since becoming France's first lady. So far there has been no official confirmation from Elysee Palace.
Sarkozy will hold talks with Mbeki and address a joint sitting of parliament in Cape Town on Thursday. He is expected to be accompanied by around 40 French captains of industry, including Areva president Anne Lauvergeon.
Sarkozy and Bruni were also scheduled to meet privately with former president Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg on Friday.
Sarkozy's visit to South Africa early in his presidency is seen as evidence of his plans to strengthen relations with former British colonies in Africa and end France's focus on "France Afrique" (French-speaking Africa).
On the eve of his visit, British-based aid agency Oxfam urged Sarkozy to reaffirm France's commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of its gross domestic product on aid by 2012.
Such a move would be a chance for Sarkozy "to show his commitment to the continent's development" following his "controversial speech on African development in Senegal last year," Oxfam said.
Sarkozy told an audience in the Senegalese capital Dakar that while France had made "mistakes" during its colonial adventures in Africa it "did not exploit anybody."
His reference to "the African peasant" whose "life ideal was to be in harmony with Nature" and "only knew the eternal renewal of time" also drew scorn from African media, politicians and intellectuals.
Mbeki, however, defended Sarkozy as a friend of Africa for proposing a more equal relationship between France and the continent.