26.06.2008

Energy Minister of Russia Sergey Shmatko has sent a welcome address to the participants in the 1st International Forum ATOMCON 2008

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
 
I would like to welcome you at this grandiose forum, which has brought together colleagues and partners, suppliers and consumers, managers of contractor and owner companies.

ATOMCON is being conducted for the first time and I hope that it will become one of the major annual events in our nuclear industry.

Nuclear energy has a special role in the global energy balance and this role will be steadily growing.

The Government of Russia gives high priority to the reformation of our nuclear sector. We have established Atomenergoprom OJSC, a global holding consolidating all types of nuclear cycle activities: from mining of uranium to construction and operation of nuclear power plants. This is a unique project, which gives us a serious competitive advantage.

Russia is enlarging and will be enlarging its presence on the world market. We have very ambitious but quite realistic plans. According to preliminary estimates, as much as 500GW of new nuclear reactors will be launched worldwide in the next 20–30 years, of which 300GW will be built in the developing countries, which have no modern technologies for building NPPs but have quickly growing demand for energy. Russia hopes to get contracts for at least 20%-25% of this 300GW. 

Today, our energy sector is enjoying new prospects. Successful implementation of our global tasks in the nuclear sector is a pledge of stability of our state, a guarantee of its strength and power. It is for nuclear energy to ensure our energy security and to give a new impulse to our economic growth. This is exactly the goal of our federal target program in the nuclear sector and this is the basic idea of our long-term energy development strategy.

Dear colleagues,

I wish you fruitful work at ATOMCON 2008, new contacts and reliable partners. I am sure that the Forum will contribute to our common cause to strengthen the positions of nuclear power technologies in the world.

Good luck.

Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation
Sergey Shmatko