During her visit, Anna Maria Cetto will open a grinding shop at the Khoiniki creamery built in technical cooperation with the IAEA, visit the Polessye State Radiation-Ecology Natural Reserve, and the Practical-Science Centre for Radiation Medicine and Human Ecology in Gomel, Andrei Savinykh, press secretary of the Belarussian Foreign Ministry, told a news briefing.
She will meet with Belarussian nuclear scientists in the Sosny Joint Energy and Nuclear Research Institute.
In recent years, Belarus-IAEA cooperation has been "developing dynamically, and political contacts between Belarussian leaders and the IAEA have been held at high level", points out the Foreign Ministry.
Belarus actively partakes in the IAEA Technical Cooperation Programme. The priority areas of interaction are - the rehabilitation of the territory affected by the Chernobyl accident, improvement of health protection, ensurance of radiation safety, and development of nuclear technologies.
Since 1990 Belarus has received 5.4 million dollars' worth of technical assistance through the IAEA. Within a 2003-2004 set of programmes, Belarus is working on five IAEA national projects to a total of 1.3 million dollars, the Foreign Ministry said.
Also, Belarus participates in 18 regional technical cooperation projects, including the Chernobyl project with a 3 million dollar budget. The national project, in technical cooperation with the IAEA, Rehabilitation of the Territories Contaminated as a Result of the Chernobyl Catastrophe (400,000-500,000 dollars annually) is being carried out in Belarus.
It intends the decontamination of industrial premises and equipment, safety beltcontrol, introduction of new farming methods targeting a lower content of radionuclides in foods, and setting up radiation monitoring laboratories.
