The US-India nuclear agreement opens the door to an energy marketNew Delhi - The green light from the international community to the cooperation agreement between the U.S. and India in the field of civilian nuclear energy will allow a market for tens of billions of dollars to manufacturers of nuclear reactors Americans, but also to Russians and French.
On Saturday, the Group of 45 nuclear supplier countries (NSG), which controls the export of its technology in the world, validated in Vienna a 2005 pact that allows U.S.-if they so Congress finally ratified, sell to India civilian atomic plants.
Thus, the NSG lifted de facto international embargo that governed 34 years ago on nuclear trade with New Delhi, which is not part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but it is a military declared nuclear power since its first nuclear test In 1974. The NSG prohibits trade with states that have not signed the NPT.
This is "the end of decades of isolation" for India, the prime minister expressed satisfaction Manmoham Singh. "The opening for a full civilian nuclear cooperation between India and the international community, will be favourable both for India and for the world," Singh appreciated. This will ensure the Asian giant "the pursuit of durable economic growth in terms of respect for the environment," concluded the agent of one of the new major pollutants on the planet.
India has huge energy needs due to its economic growth (8%) and its dependence on oil products, of which imports 70% of consumption.
The new heavyweight of Asia dreams of acquiring by 2020 from 40,000 megawatts of installed capacity for nuclear reactors. According to the confederation of industry india, to achieve this goal would require a twenty-reactors in addition to the 22 that are already in service, which means 30,000 million in contracts over the next 15 years. The investment would increase to 100,000 million dollars by the year 2030, and global enterprises in the sector are in line.
In August, the atomic agency india (NPCIL) for preselection-reactor-filled eventually, the U.S. Westinghouse Electric Company, the Japanese-American General Electric-Hitachi, the French Areva and the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom.
The government ceased to understand then that they would prefer the French and Russian technology. Moscow already equipped a nuclear plant in southern India and since the state visit of Nicolas Sarkozy in January, there is a Franco-Indian agreement on civilian nuclear energy. However, the group Areva told AFP in Paris that the discussions were only at "political" and not "industrial", especially since this issue is explosive in India. The coalition government led by the Congress Party, was about to fall in July before the parliament.
The communist parties and left the once-government-led allies to a vote of confidence lambast nuclear agreement "gives to India to U.S. arms" and settles the "national sovereignty", in relation to the right of New Delhi to perform other atomic tests.
Three years ago that the Indo-American text is the cornerstone of diplomatic rapprochement between the two States, after years of mistrust in the Cold War. "India fell into the trap of non-proliferation stretched by the United States," complained Yashwant Sinha, leader of the opposition Hindu nationalist party (Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP), which seeks to regain power after the legislative elections scheduled in 2009.
