MOSCOW, September 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will seek a stake in the Belene nuclear power plant being built by a Russian company in northern Bulgaria, Russia's nuclear chief said on Monday.

"If Bulgaria announces a tender for its stake in the Belene NPP, we'll participate in it," Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian state-run civilian nuclear power corporation Rosatom, said in an interview with the Bulgarian newspaper Standart.

Russia's state nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly AtomStroyExport won a tender to build and deliver essential equipment for the nuclear power plant in Belene in 2005. In early 2008, AtomStroyExport signed a contract worth around 4 billion euros ($5.8 billion) for the plant's construction.

"When the project was started, we perceived ourselves exclusively as a contractor and not as an investor. But if such an opportunity avails itself, we would like to participate in the tender, as we are absolutely convinced in the project's recoupment," Standart quoted Kiriyenko as saying.

AtomStroyExport, which is a subsidiary of Rosatom, has completed or is working on reactors in Iran, Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, China and India.