The 16th Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference (16PBNC) was held in Aomori, Japan, for 13-17 Oct. 2008, attended by some 700 registered participants from 22 countries, most of them from Pacific Rim.

As planned, RCA Regional Office took part in the 16PBNC to enhance RCA awareness, and possibly partnership with other organizations in the region, by presentation of a paper entitled “RCA and its Regional Office for Cooperative Activities in the Application of Nuclear Techniques in Asia and the Pacific”. The paper was presented in the Keynote Session 8, “International Cooperation of Nuclear Technology and Applications” in which several other presentations were made by IAEA-TC (Dr. Salema), FNCA (Dr. Machi), IAEA-NS (Dr. Yamagata) on relevant subjects. The RCARO progamme officer (Dr. Lee) also handed out RCA brochures and Success Stories to the audiences in the session.

The presentations were followed by a panel discussion on ways to enhance international cooperation in the region. While the panel discussed mostly on the collaboration between RCA and FNCA and with a focus on nuclear power issues, Dr. Lee emphasized the need for partnership with regional organizations in non-power applications of nuclear techniques to which the panelists consented.

The PBNC Secretariat said the presentation materials of the Conference are to be uploaded in the web site (http://www.pbnc2008.org) soon, by 25 Oct.2008.