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| India-Pakistan |
| Australia Considering Policy Change to Sell Uranium to India |
| 2006-09-25 |
| Australia is considering changing its nuclear policy to enable the sale of uranium to India, Prime Minister John Howard said. Australia does not currently sell the fuel to India as it has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Sydney Morning Herald reported today that two Indian government officials had urged Australia to reverse its ban and feed a booming economy. ``We are examining all of the implications of the Indian request and the desire of India to be part of the nuclear system and get access to uranium for peaceful purposes,'' Howard told reporters in Sydney. ``That would require a change in policy.'' Australia, which holds 40 percent of the world's uranium, is seeking to tap rising demand for uranium as countries look to alternatives for gas, oil and coal. Australia in April signed an agreement allowing uranium exports to China, which needs to build two reactors a year to meet its target of generating 4 percent of its power from nuclear plants by 2020. ``Without changing our policy, we could not sell to India, but we can to China,'' Howard said. ``If India were to meet safeguard obligations, some would see it as anomalous if we were to sell to China and not to India.'' Australia exported A$546 million ($410 million) of uranium oxide in the year ended June 30, 2006, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics. The value of exports is forecast to rise to A$790 million in fiscal 2007, ABARE said in a report released in Canberra today. Uranium prices have surged almost fourfold in the past three years. |
| Posted by:john |