BEIJING, May 12 -- China will hold a national-level nuclear security exercise next year, said a nuclear emergency response office with the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense on Monday.

Code-named "Shield 2015," the exercise will simulate a nuclear material handling process and will be conducted in south China's Guangdong Province due to its long history in civilian nuclear power use, according to a preliminary plan.

It will be the second national-level nuclear security exercise since "Shield 2009," which was held in November 2009 at Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant in east China's Jiangsu Province.

Yao Bin, vice director of the nuclear emergency response office, said that China will continue to build a nuclear safety-control system, though it has held a decades-long safety record.

Since its drill in 2009, the office has coordinated more than 300 small-scale exercises.

China cautiously resumed its development of nuclear power construction in October 2012 after a halt caused by safety concerns from the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan in March 2011.

The government has been stressing the importance of nuclear safety in its move to increase use of cleaner energy. China operates 19 nuclear reactor units and has another 29 under construction.