Rafael Arutiunian, First Deputy Director of Nuclear Safety Institute

– Quite effective processes are underway in the nuclear industry

The reformation of Russia’s nuclear industry is over and the civil sector of the industry is ready for open and transparent cooperation with foreign partners, Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Sergey Kiriyenko said during ATOMEXPO 2009 on May 26 2009.

Today, everybody in the world is integrating. Russia is acting as both contractor of NPP construction projects and potential investor (I mean the projects in Turkey and Belarus) and is, simultaneously, searching for an investor for the Baltic NPP project. The formation of strong companies in the fields of peaceful use of nuclear energy and nuclear fuel production is a global process and, as a competitive force on this market, we are moving in line with this tendency. We have obvious advantages, in fact, we have all for the cycle, we are one of the few countries having absolutely all technologies in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy: from uranium mining and fuel production to NPP construction and nuclear fuel processing. I think that it is right that we are starting to finance NPP construction abroad. By doing it we are diversifying our markets.

Quite effective processes are underway in the nuclear industry today. Our agreement with Japan for cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy is a real breakthrough. It means that objective aspects have outweighed the subjective political problems. Without such an agreement we would not be able to effectively cooperate with the Japanese. This is very good news for both parties.