Remarks made by Vice Premier Mr. Zhang Dejiang at the opening ceremony of the International Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century

Nuclear science and technology is one of the greatest scientific and technological achievements of mankind in the 20th century. Nuclear science and technology is widely applied in various sectors with over 50 years of development, such as energy, industry, agriculture, health, and environment protection, and is playing an important role in prospering economy, improving people's livelihood, and promoting sustainable development. With global economic development and rising energy consumption, supply of traditional energy source is becoming more stretched and climate change is becoming an increasingly severe challenge. It is a common task of the international community to develop and utilize clean and renewable energy sources and properly address growing contradiction among economic development, energy development and environment protection. Given its advantage as clean, safe and could be applied in large scale, more and more countries are placing importance on nuclear energy. Accelerating peaceful uses of nuclear energy is the common wishes and inevitable choice of many countries. China started the development of nuclear energy in the early 1950s, and with the efforts of over half a century, China has established a relatively complete nuclear industry system. The installed capacity of nuclear power reached 9100 MWe, and nuclear power generation accounts for 2% of the national total electricity generated. Nuclear energy is playing an incremental role for China's economic development. However, nuclear energy utilization is rather insufficient in China, its development level is behind countries which are advanced in nuclear energy use such as the United States and France, the rate of nuclear power generation in the total electricity generated still falls behind the world average level. China's energy supply mix is featured by coal dominant and low proportion of clean energy. To achieve sustainable energy and socio-economic development, China has formulated the energy development strategy of active promoting energy conservation and optimizing energy. structure. Accelerating nuclear power development and enhancing the ratio of clean energy such as nuclear power in the aggregate energy supply is the priority of China's energy development strategy. Currently, peaceful use of nuclear energy has entered a stage of rapid development. A batch of new nuclear power projects are starting construction in coastal areas, and preparation for other new projects is going on in orderly manner, demonstration projects of the introduction of third generation nuclear power technology are moving on smoothly. Scientific and research engineering programs such as China experimental fast reactor, high temperature gas-cooled reactor, and thermal nuclear fusion device are in positive progress. Nuclear fuel cycle industry continues its development and the ability of assured supply of nuclear fuel is being enhanced. China has always attached great importance to nuclear safety in its promotion of nuclear energy utilization, and established a fairly complete nuclear safety legal, regulatory and emergency management system which is in line with international best practices. China has issued series of instruments such as nuclear safety regulations, rules, guidelines, standards. Independent, strict, and efficient nuclear safety supervision and management and scientific management of nuclear facility operators have been put in place to ensure safe and secure operation of nuclear facilities. All these efforts have led to sound nuclear safety record and boosted public confidence in nuclear energy