Statement by His Excellency Mr Tabaré Vázquez, President of Uruguay. Appendix I. Opening Session Statements [International Conference on the Technical Cooperation Programme: Sixty Years and Beyond - Contributing to Development, Vienna (Austria), 30 May - 1 June 2017]

Although I currently serve as President of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay (by citizens' mandate and for the second non-consecutive time), I am a medical oncologist and radiotherapist by vocation and profession. Then, you may imagine how much to be here with you today means to me. But besides this background, a country aware of the importance of the transfer of technologies carried out by this agency through its Technical Cooperation Program. A program from which Uruguay has benefited in areas such as regulation of activities relating to radiations through the creation of new requirements and guidelines based on IAEA guidelines. A program to which Uruguay has also contributed from numerous national and regional projects related to nuclear applications in different fields and instances of the development of the countries since that is, in essence, the fundamental purpose of the Program and the IAEA: to make energy and nuclear technology available for the progress and well-being of humanity.