[News from CAEA] (by Gu Xinping) On January 15.2004, Zhang Yunchuan, Ministor of the COSTIND and Chairman of the Nuclear Subcommittee of the Committee on Regular meetings of heads of Government between China and Russia , met with Reshetnikov, the First Vice-President of Russia ASE Company (the Russia general contractor of Tianwan NPP). The two parties exchanged their opinions on Tianwan NPP and Sino-Russia cooperation in nuclear energy.

During the meeting ,Zhang Yunchuan said China and Russia had carried out a great deal of work on the basis of strategetic cooperation fellowship established by two countries, and the cooperation was fruitful. The Tianwan NPP is one of the cooperative symbol and the Chinese government and experts were paying much attention to the Tianwan NPP. The constructors of Tianwan NPP had made great progress after overcoming a great deal of difficulties with the effects of two parties, Zhang Yunchuan said. He also expressed his thanks and respects to the experts, engineers and toilers in the site.

When talking about the progress of the Tianwan NPP, Zhang Yunchuan said that the system installation and cold test had been finished and the heat test would be done soon, and he hoped that Russia would insure normal working conditions as before for the success of heat test, and that the future charging, combined to the grid and business management would be finished satisfactorily. If the advanced, reliable and economical characteristics of Russia nuclear generation technologies were shown in this project, Russia would have more chances of entering China nuclear power market. Zhang said he belived that''s a common wish of the two parties.

Zhang Yunchuan introduced that today in China the nuclear generation only accounts for 1.5% of the gross generation but the international average index is 16%. He indicated that, in order to meet the requirments of the economy growth, China would speed the pace of developing nuclear power and make the nuclear generation account for 4% of the gross generation.

Reshetnikov expressed his thanks to Director Zhang for his concern on the Tianwan NPP project, He said that the two parties had established a joint team and agreed on the heat test plan , they would work together to do their best to shorten the test time and realize business management on schedule and make the Tianwan NPP project be successful as well as that of the centrifuge and CEFR. Reshetnikov said they had interests in China’s four home-made-and- supported projects, and if they had the chance to build the second Tianwan NPP, the cost would be reduced greatly for the utilization of the current site and establishment.

The two parties also exchanged their opinions on how to promote the other nuclear projects under the frame of the Nuclear Issue Branch of the Committee of Sino-Russia Premier Periodic Contact.