SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China has finished building the outer safety dome at its first overseas “Hualong One” nuclear reactor in Pakistan, with the project scheduled to be finished by the end of 2020, the China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) said late Tuesday.

China is hoping to use its third-generation Hualong One design to boost its presence in the overseas nuclear power sector and it is already making plans to build projects in Argentina and Britain.

CNNC described the completion of the double-layered steel dome on the containment building of the Karachi 2 nuclear power plant in Pakistan as a milestone that would help demonstrate China’s Hualong One technology worldwide. The firm is building two Hualong One units at the site.

China developed the Hualong One reactor as a rival to the Westinghouse-developed AP1000 and Europe’s “Evolutionary Pressurised Reactor”, with both models beset by cost overruns and construction delays.

The world’s first Hualong One reactor is set to go into operation ahead of schedule in the southeast Chinese province of Fujian late next year.

CNNC said its four demonstration projects in China and Pakistan are progressing in an orderly manner, noting that they “are the only third-generation pressurized water reactor projects in the world that are being constructed on schedule.”

(This story was refiled to correct location of Fujian to “southeast” not “southwest” in paragraph 5)