Russia's former atomic energy minister offered top job at new nuclear agency

Moscow -- The Russian Federation's former minister of atomic energy, Aleksandr Rumyantsev, has been invited to head the Federal Agency for Atomic Energy, the federal agency announced recently.

A spokesman at the agency said that "no fundamental changes will take place in the practical work of the Russian atomic department, either within the country or abroad". However, he continued, "the agency has greater powers to manage state assets and supervise the activities of enterprises, firms, companies and corporations in the atomic sector".

Furthermore, the agency spokesman said, "the agency will have a substantially greater role in managing the state's shareholdings in all enterprises of the atomic sector".

The Federal Agency for Atomic Energy "will honour all the commitments of the disbanded Ministry of Atomic Energy in economic cooperation between Russia and foreign countries", the spokesman of the agency noted. He recalled that Russian specialists are building generating units at nuclear power stations in such countries as China, India and Iran.

BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union