OREANDA-NEWS. May 27, 2009. Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation has set up a unified exporter of isotope production, Director General of Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko said during a press-conference today.

“Today, we have drastically changed the rules in the field of trade in isotopes. Rosatom has analyzed the situation on this market and has seen that Russian companies ensure almost half of the global isotope supplies but sell isotope products at very low prices as raw materials,” Kiriyenko said.

Now, Rosatom has prohibited its companies from exporting isotopes independently and has set up a unified supplier. “As a result of this work we have already managed to raise the prices of some items by as many as 10 times. And nothing awful has happened: our consumers have survived this,” Kiriyenko said.

Kiriyenko compared the export of “raw isotopes” with the sale of round timber or crude oil. “For the time being we must give up this type of export and use isotopes at home for manufacturing export-oriented high-tech products.”