The contract was signed after South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo met with his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoev in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, Yonhap said.

Han is on the first leg of his 10-day tour of Central Asia which will also take him to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. Han’s Central Asian tour aims to seek more energy and natural resources for South Korea.

South Korea consumes about 4,000 tons of uranium each year. It has been importing uranium mostly from Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, the United States and France, Yonhap said.