18th Meeting of Forum for Nuclear Cooperation in Asia (FNCA)

18th Meeting of Forum for Nuclear Cooperation in Asia at the Ministerial level was held on October 11, 2017 in Astana. The meeting was organized by Ministry of Energy of RK, Cabinet Office, Japan Atomic Energy Commission.

Senior Officials from Ministries and Departments of 11 member-states: Australia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, China, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Thailand, Philippines and Japan took part in the Forum activity. The meeting provided an opportunity to share views on policy in the field of researches, developments and use of nuclear technologies, and the role of regional cooperation to its implementation.

The overall theme of the meeting was “Application of Nuclear Science and Technology for Environment Protection”.

The meeting was opened by Kanat Bozumbayev, Ministry of Energy RK, and Yoshiaki Oka, Chairman of Japan Atomic Energy Commission.

Mr Kanat Bozumbayev, Minister of Energy RK	Dr Yoshiaki Oka, Chairman of Japan Atomic Energy Commission

At the opening of the Forum, Kanat Bozumbayev, Minister of Energy RK noted that “…Kazakhstan had become a full participant of the Forum since 2010. The participation in the Forum activity provided the opportunity to review with modern approaches in the sphere of radiology, radiation safety, nuclear physical security as well as advanced technologies in the field of electron accelerator and nuclear research reactors. This will enable us to take right decisions for the safe use of nuclear technologies in our country and support non-proliferation regime of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials in the world …”.

The Director General of NNC RK, Erlan Batyrbekov presented a keynote speech within the meeting theme. In his speech, he highlighted the most significant examples of nuclear technologies use for the environment protection in Kazakhstan.

The representatives of member states presented country reports reflecting the data on changes over the past year in policy and activity of nuclear science and technologies in our countries and highlighted the achievements and problems in use of such technologies for the environment protection.

As a result of the Forum the participants adopted Joint Communique in the area of extension and strengthening of the Forum activity relating to the use of nuclear science and technologies with a focus on such spheres as environment protection, health care services, medicine, and agriculture as well as active support of being implemented projects such as “Mutation Selection”, “Radiation Oncology”, “Climate Change”, and the possible future projects on nuclear security culture and physical protection that could contribute to the stable development of each country.

Upon the completion of the Forum, Yoshiaki Oka, Chairman of Japan Atomic Energy Commission visited Kurchatov town and the available facilities of the National Nuclear Center of RK.