Vietnam and Japan will join forces to build two nuclear reactors in the Southeast Asian nation, leaders of the two countries said Sunday. 'Vietnam confirms that the Vietnamese government chooses Japan as a cooperation partner to build two nuclear reactors', Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan said in a joint statement after talks. The move makes it highly likely that Japanese companies will get the contract, a senior Japanese official said. It would be Vietnam's second nuclear deal. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is also on a visit to Vietnam, was on Sunday to sign a deal -- already announced -- for construction of Vietnam's first nuclear power plant. Vietnam wants to build eight nuclear facilities in the next two decades. Initial government plans call for four reactors, with a total capacity of 4,000 megawatts and at least one of them operational from 2020. In their joint statement, the Vietnamese and Japanese leaders said they welcomed finalisation of negotiations on a nuclear cooperation pact 'and expressed their expectation towards a signing of the pact as early as possible.' 