CHINA / National
China, Australia ink uranium trade deal
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-04-03 09:11
Australia and China signed a nuclear safeguards deal on Monday to allow
Beijing to import Australian uranium for power generation, but an
Australian minister said exports were unlikely to start for some years.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (back L) and Australian Prime Minister John
Howard (back R) watch foreign ministers Li Zhaoxing (L) from China and
Alexander Downer from Australia exchange the Nuclear Safeguard Agreement
during a signing ceremony in Canberra's Parliament House April 3, 2006.
[Reuters]
The deal was signed in the presence of visiting Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao and Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
China is expected to build 40 to 50 nuclear power plants over the next 20
years and needs steady supplies of uranium.
Australia has about 40 percent of the world's known uranium reserves, but
it only allows sales to countries which have signed the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) who also agree to a separate bilateral
safeguards deal.
But it has only three operating uranium mines, owned by BHP Billiton, Rio
Tinto and General Atomics of the United States, and Resources Minister
Ian Macfarlane said big uranium exports to China were unlikely to start
until 2010.
"Australia is already fully committed in terms of uranium production
through until about 2008, bearing in mind that the signing of this
agreement means that this is really only the start of the process,"
Macfarlane told Australian radio.
He said once the safeguards deal was signed, China would then need to
begin commercial negotiations with uranium producers in Australia, and
new mines would probably need to be developed that would require
licensing by the government.
"Realistically in terms of any significant quantity we are probably
looking at some time past 2010," said Macfarlane, who met Wen in the
Western Australian state capital Perth on Sunday.
Some analysts have said the safeguards deal between Australia and China,
which are also negotiating a free trade deal, will test Canberra's skills
at juggling growing ties with Asia's emerging power and its strong
alliance with the United States.
Australia has 19 bilateral nuclear safeguard agreements, covering 36
countries, including the United States, France, Britain, Mexico, Japan,
Finland and South Korea.
The NPT obligates the five nuclear-weapon states -- the United States,
Russia, United Kingdom, France, and China -- not to transfer nuclear
weapons, other nuclear explosive devices, or technology to
non-nuclear-weapon states and those which haven't signed the treaty.
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20071123 Extracted from http://www.hellomandarin.net
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