BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese and German companies have suspended their contacts on the cooperative project concerning MOX,a fuel for nuclear power plants, Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said here Tuesday.

In response to a question on Sino-German MOX cooperative project, the spokesman said the Chinese company had had some initial contacts with the German firm for purchasing the equipment used to make MOX, but they had suspend the contacts afterwards.

Still, the two sides can have further contacts if they consider the cooperative project mutually beneficial and want to continue the project, but the contacts must be fair and transparent, added Kong.

The fuels used for nuclear power stations are called spent fuels, which are made up of unexhausted uranium and plutonium. Coming out of the two radioactive metallic elements, the mixed-oxide MOX will be again applied in nuclear power stations. The theory behind further processing is to improve the utilization ratio of the uranium resource and thus increase the economic benefits of a nuclear power station.