Last week, the G20 2016 Summit was successfully hosted in Hangzhou China. As we know, G20 is an international forum mostly focusing on the world economy, leaders from the major countries of the world gathered and a variety of topics were discussed including the nuclear industry on deepening existing and starting new bilateral or multilateral cooperation.
Not as many traditional industries of which the development has been severely affected by the slowly growing global economy, the nuclear industry is growing fast today driven by its enlarging market. During the opening remark, China’s president Xi Jinping emphasized again that the world economy is facing the challenge of stagnation and the key to overcome it is to strengthen globalization and innovation, drive the economic growth from the third world, and it is the duty of the world to help Africa get industrialized. What he said is exactly working for the nuclear industry as well.
As the host state of G20 2016, China reiterated the concept of “sustainable development” and “inclusive growth”, and first time put Africa prior on the world development to-do list. This year in June, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) approached Sudan and proposed to assist Sudan, which is one of the least developed countries in the world, establish its nuclear energy supply. Egypt also announced its future nuclear development plan and signed the contract with Russia one month later.
During the G20 Summit, the President of Argentina Mauricio Macri met with the president of CNNC Qian Zhimin. Besides the previous Hualong-1 project that CNNC is constructing in China, Macri and Qian Zhimin achieved an agreement on building another heavy water reactor plant in Argentina. Macri highly commented the cooperation between China and Argentina in the nuclear industry during the G20 conference, he promised that the construction of the new heavy water reactor project will commence in 2017.
President of Argentina Mauricio Macri and president of CNNC Qian Zhimin discussing on the future nuclear project
From the recent movement of the nuclear market, we can expect that in the near future, the Third World will be the biggest engine, which means a bigger emerging market of the global nuclear industry.
Another news from the G20 Summit is the new discussion on UK’s nuclear project Hinkley Point C. The Prime Minister of UK Theresa May promised during the summitthe government will give the final answer to the ups and downs of the project by the end of September 2016.
The emerging market of the nuclear industry is always the main focus of Asia Nuclear Business Platform, and it will be deeply discussed during the conference. For more information on this industry gathering, email [email protected]
