The 4th FNCA (Forum for Nuclear Co-operation in Asia) Ministerial Level Meeting together with the Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) of the participating member countries will be held in 2-3 December 2003 at Bankoku Shinyokan, Nago City, Okinawa, Japan. This year's round table discussion topics are 1) Enhancement of Socio-economic Impact of Nuclear Technology Application, and 2) Sustainable Development and Nuclear Energy. Possible synergy impact between RCA and FNCA has been a traditional interest by the both regional co-operative structures. In an effort to elevate this interest, a higher official of IAEA's TC Department will be invited to the meeting and is supposed to make a presentation on the Agency's TC programmes with particular focus on RCA programmes. At present, Mr Peter Salema, Director, Division for Africa and East Asia and the Pacific, Department of Technical Co-operation plans to participate in the meeting. (As of 27 Oct. 2003)

The FNCA (originally ICNCA) now comprises 9 member countries in Asia and the Pacific region, i.e., AUL, CPR, INS, JPN, ROK, MAL, PHI, THA and VIE. Therefore, all FNCA member countries are RCA Member States but not all RCA Member States are FNCA family members. The co-operative projects of FNCA are much similar to RCA but different components. At present, several individual projects are on-going under the framework of FNCA. They are; 1) Utilization of Research Reactors (Tc-99m Generator project, Nuclear Activation Analysis project, Neutron scattering project) 2) Application of RI and Radiation for Agriculture (Plant Mutation Breeding project, Bio-Fertilizer project) 3) Application of RI and Radiation in Medical Care (Radiation oncology project) 4) Public Information of Nuclear Energy 5) Radioactive Waste Management 5) Nuclear Safety Culture 6) Human Resources Development 7) Industrial Application (Low energy electron accelerator project), and others. To this end, it has been sought a synergy impact between RCA and FNCA and there have been some indications on supplementary co-operation, particularly in the fields of medical care and research reactor utilizations.

For more information: Sachiko Onose: onose@jaif.or.jp