A Russian company tasked with building Iran's first nuclear plant is to increase the number of its staff at the Bushehr nuclear plant.

Russia's Atomstroiexport, nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly, has declared that it would increase the number of its personnel by at least 25 percent as the final stages to start up the plant is underway.

"The nuclear power station at Bushehr is entering a new phase. Atomstroyexport is increasing its efforts to bring more personnel to work on the station," the Russian contractor said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters on Friday.

"The main technology for the station has already been installed, so the construction work is being concluded while the activisation work is getting under way," Atromstroyexport said.

This new phase of the project -- which involves readying the nuclear reactor for start up -- requires that staff number to increase to more than 2,000 workers from the current 1,600, it said.

On Thursday, the head of the Russian company, Sergei Kiriyenko, declared that the Bushehr plant would be completed in 2009.

Iran and Russia signed an agreement on nuclear cooperation in 1992, and Atomstroyexport signed a contract in January 1995 to finish building Iran's first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr, originally started in the mid-1970s by Siemens of Germany but then abandoned with the 1979 Islamic Revolution

The plant was originally scheduled to come on stream in 1999, but the project has faced numerous delays.

MGH/HAR