Japan's new prime minister Shinzo Abe has voiced his willingness to build new nuclear reactors, reports said Monday, despite widespread public opposition to atomic energy since the Fukushima crisis.

During an interview Sunday with television network TBS, Abe said new reactors would be different from those at Fukushima that were crippled by the earthquake and tsunami of 2011, according to major news outlets including the Nikkei business daily and Kyodo News. "New reactors will be totally different from the ones built 40 years ago, those at the Fukushima Daiichi plant that caused the crisis," Abe said in the interview, according to the Mainichi Shimbun daily. "

We will be building them while earning the understanding of the public as to how different they are," he was quoted by the Nikkei as saying. It was the first time since Abe took office last Wednesday that he has voiced support for new construction, although his pro-business government had been widely expected to restart Japan's stalled nuclear programme. The day after being installed, his administration began signalling an about-face on the previous government's policy of working towards a phasing out of atomic power, with a key minister speaking of a policy review.