South Korea's state-run power giant has been selected as the preferred bidder for the construction of up to four nuclear power plant units in the Czech Republic.

The Czech government announced that it picked Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power(KHNP) as the preferred bidder on Wednesday, saying that the Korean company was better “in practically all the criteria” than a competing bid by France’s EDF.

Prague is reportedly seeking to build a total of four new nuclear reactors in what would become the most expensive project in the history of the country: two for each of its two nuclear plants in Dukovany and Temelin, run by the state-owned power group CEZ.

The combined cost for the construction of the two reactors in Dukovany is estimated at 400 billion Czech koruna, or about 17-point-three billion U.S. dollars.

The value of the project will be finalized through negotiations, with the final contract with the winner set to be signed in March next year.