In the afternoon of November 4, 2014, at the VAEI’s 3rd-floor Meeting room, PhD Trần Chí Thành, VAEI’s Director and Mr. Peter Liska, Vice President of VUJE’s Board of Directors signed the Cooperation Agreement on atomic energy field between the two parties. Participating in the Signing Ceremony were PhD Nguyễn Hào Quang, VAEI’s Deputy Director; Ms. Trần Bích Ngọc, Deputy Director of the Department of International Cooperation, Ministry of Science and Technology and leaders of units under VAEI. On the side of the Slovak Republic were Mr. Stefan Rozkopal, Director of the Foreign Economic Relations Department, Ministry of Economics of Slovak Republic; Mr. Drahomir Stos, Director of the Department of Economics, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovak Republic; Mr. Jaroslav Jelenik, Commercial Counsellor of the Embassy of Slovak Republic in Vietnam. 

VUJE was established in 1977, currently it is an engineering agency which performs most activities of researching, designing, implementing, providing equipment and training in atomic energy field of Slovak Republic. In addition, the agency also carries out activities relating to preparation, construction, operation and termination of nuclear power plants. In his speech to introduce about VUJE’s activities in atomic energy field, Mr. Peter Liska hoped to cooperate, share knowledge and experience of Slovak in general and those of VUJE in particular in order to ensure safety and effective operation of nuclear power plants in Vietnam in the future. Slovak Republic started to build nuclear power plants in 1958, so far Slovakia has had 7 on-going nuclear power plants and continued to build two more plants. With experience gained from generations of power plants built by the former Russia combined with modern technology from Western Europe, this is the opportunity for VUJE to cooperate with Vietnam when it starts to construct its nuclear power plants. After the introduction of VAEI’s key research activities in atomic energy field, PhD Trần Chí Thành also expressed desires to cooperate with VUJE to promote research in atomic energy field and especially the development of VAEI’s future human resources. 

According to the signed Agreement, cooperation activities would be focused on three key fields such as the nuclear safety field including hydrothermal analysis, preparation of safety reports, operational process, regular safety assessment; the field of assessing components of nuclear power plants including designing, developing processes, providing equipment according to requirements of agencies which operate power plants and nuclear units, providing services of equipment checking, assessing aging of materials etc. and the field of radiation safety and management of radiation wastes. 

This is the first cooperation agreement on atomic energy between Vietnam and Slovak Republic. Hopefully this agreement would strengthen cooperation activities between the two agencies, helping VAEI develop research and development capacities and trainresearch staff, contributing the success of Vietnam’s atomic energy development program.