Energy technology for industrial cooperation in Asia
One of the main objectives pursued by DG XVII and the Organization for the Promotion of Energy Technologies (OPET), in the framework of the Associated Measures provided for under the THERMIE programme, is industrial cooperation with third countries in the area of energy technology. In the past two years, priority has been given to vigorous and sustained action in the regions and countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Nevertheless, THERMIE has undertaken a small number of special targeted actions to provide a basis for industrial cooperation in certain other parts of the world. The actions adopted have been those capable of producing short-term results. Actions have been directed towards countries or specific areas in which the following conditions were met: - Countries with favourable economic, political and development conditions; - Countries in which the requirements and, very often, the necessary contacts, had already been more or less identified. Asia is, at present, the only part of the world in a state of real growth. In 1993, it will account for 30% of the world GNP compared with 27% for North America and 33% for the whole of Europe. The stress on cooperation with Asia is, in addition, to the above considerations, very much in the spirit of the Rio Summit recommendations, since no strategy aiming at the sustainable development of the planet can ignore the development needs of this vast continent (this becomes obvious when considering that, if all Asian countries had the same per capita consumption as South Korea, the world's energy consumption would rise by 2200 Mtoc, which is twice the oil production of the OPEC countries). Based on all of these considerations, two exercises in industrial promotion involving China and Korea were implemented. These consist in a business tour of Europe for Chinese industrialists and officials and a tour and seminar for European industrialists in Korea. A third operation involving Thailand is in preparation.