Japan said Friday, August 5, it will continue exporting atomic power plants, despite uncertainty over its own use of them as it continues to grapple with a crisis at the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant.

Tokyo actively promoted nuclear plant exports until a massive quake and tsunami on March 11 sent the Fukushima Daiichi facility into meltdown, causing it to leak radiation in the world's worst nuclear accident since the 1985 Chernobyl disaster.

Japan reached an agreement last October to provide two nuclear power plants to Vietnam. It also signed a memorandum in December on civil nuclear cooperation with Turkey, preceding a possible deal for Japanese companies to build a nuclear plant by the Black Sea.

In a statement, the Tokyo government said: "In case other countries wish to utilise our country's nuclear power technology, we should provide it by ensuring that its safety is of the highest global standards."

It added that "a number of countries" continued to express an interest in Japan's nuclear power technology.