the safety of the Daya Bay plant. She advised that the LegCo Ad Hoc Group would wish to disclose the content of his discussion to the media.
10.
Mrs. Chan also briefed Dr. Blix of the Government's involvement in contingency planning and public education. On contingency planning, the Government had engaged the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority to be our consultants. The Authority was compiling a report advising the development of the contingency plan and this report was expected to be ready for publication by the end of this year. As to public education, the Government, in close consultation with the HKNIC, was implementing a programme of activities to educate the public about nuclear energy and the effects on radiation. The scope of nuclear energy had also been introduced in the school curriculum. Mrs. Chan said that the relevant IAEA guidelines had been, and would continue to be, taken into account by the Government when drawing up contingency measures and public information programmes. Hong Kong would welcome any long term advice that IAEA could give in this area.
11.
In the course of discussion, Dr. Blix also talked about his recent visit to China. He said that he had expressed disappointment to Primier Zhao Ziyang that China had dropped its earlier more ambitious programme and was now going to rely more heavily on coal and hydro power to meet future electricity requirements. Mrs. Chan suggested that this change in policy might have been associated with difficulties China had encountered regarding its foreign exchange holdings. Dr. Blix agreed, adding that he had been told by Chinese leaders that the high cost of nuclear plants and China's abundance in coal were also factors in their decision. He had nevertheless advised them that they had probably not taken sufficiently into account the environmental costs that would arise from such a heavy dependence on coal.
Commenting on this aspect, Dr. Blix