In a comment on the speech by a conferee at a session of the State Council presidium, where problems of the nuclear power industry were in discussion, the Russian president recalled that foreign aid for it has come up to 500 million dollars, while the domestic allocations stand at 733 million dollars.
"It is not enough," the president emphasized.
"We have to think how to increase funding both our own and with the attraction of foreign resources," Mr. Putin said.
Alexander Rumyantsev, head of the Federal Nuclear Energy Agency, noted that "as to safety, Russian nuclear power plants are among the first in the world."
He said that in 2003 Russia's NPPs registered one of the lowest incidences of unscheduled outages.
In the early 1990s the indicators were worse than the world's, he recalled. Things have gone much better in recent years, he added.
"It has been reached through a great concerted effort of the entire industry," Mr. Rumyantsev said.
He has proposed during Russia's G8 chairmanship in 2006 to talk of a joint effort to be taken to get rid of spent nuclear fuel.
"The fate of nuclear fuel waste is an uphill problem of global importance. The international community should make a pooled effort in this field," Mr. Rumyantsev told the State Council at the sitting.
"I think that during Russia's G8 presidency in 2006 we would propose a general concept on the nuclear fuel and the entire nuclear fuel cycle," said the head of the Federal Nuclear Energy Agency.
"A state system for handling nuclear waste should be arranged," he also said.
