Countries have recognized that nuclear science plays an important role in tackling the world’s most pressing issues and are investing in the capabilities of IAEA laboratories, to show their support and accelerate action, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi today told an audience of diplomats and country representatives at this year’s 66th IAEA General Conference. An event, ‘ReNuAL2: Modernization of the IAEA Seibersdorf Laboratories’, celebrated recent donations from Belgium, Saudi Arabia and the United States of America to the IAEA’s project for renovating and modernizing its laboratory hub in Austria, called ReNuAL2.
The event was attended by the Saudi Minister of Energy HRH Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud, Belgian Minister of Energy Tinne Van der Straeten and US Deputy Chief of Mission Louis Bono, representing the three recent contributing Member States.
The extrabudgetary funding will support construction of a new building in Seibersdorf that will serve as a new home for the Terrestrial Environment Laboratory, the Plant Breeding and Genetics Laboratory and the Nuclear Science and Instrumentation Laboratory. During the event, Mr Grossi presented His Royal Highness Prince Abdulaziz with a national plaque and invited him to place it in a commemorative donor display at the IAEA Headquarters in Vienna to honor Saudi Arabia’s first-time contribution to the ReNuAL2 phase of the modernization initiative. Saudi Arabia had provided extrabudgetary support for the earlier phase of ReNuAL. Mr Grossi said Saudi Arabia’s contribution had brought the completion of ReNuAL “tantalizingly close” to the finish line.
HRH Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud said the contribution was “another testimony that Saudi Arabia builds, doesn’t destroy; cooperates, doesn’t eliminate; and that we seek in our national programme, transparency.”
