In September the Federal Nuclear Agency (Rosatom) hosted a seminar on perspectives of the state-private partnership in the field of nuclear energy, daily Kommersant reported. The participants decided that it is quite realistic to attract private investors into nuclear industry. According to the Rosatom’s chief academic secretary Alexander Putilov, the state has not enough financing for the Russian nuclear industry, and Rosenergoatom can only support simple production. The existing conditions do not attract the private investors as the nuclear reactors may only belong to the state.

If the legislation is changed then the private investors could finance the nearly completed nuclear plants and then they could profit from the electricity sales. Besides, the private investments could be used for construction of floating nuclear power plants, and upgrade of the existing nuclear power plants.

Rosenergoatom’s executive director Sergey Ivanov said to Kommersant, that private companies could be also engaged in spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste handling and even reactor decommissioning. ”Of course, we should become a stock company first” he added.

The potential investors, representatives of three banks, also took part in the seminar and they were about to believe in the bright future of such cooperation. “But it should be always taken into consideration that nuclear industry will be always dominated by the state, therefore special conditions for the investors are needed here”, the head of the analytical department of Gazprombank Sergey Suverov said to Kommersant daily.