July 9, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 8,1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

ISLAMABAD, July 8: The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) on Tuesday signed a protocol with the European Organization of Nuclear Research (Cern) to manufacture high- precision equipment for export.

The PAEC chairman, Parvez Butt; Adviser to Cern director- general Dr Diether Blechschmidt and the director of National Centre for Physics (NCP) of the Quaid-i-Azam University, Dr Riazuddin, signed the agreement at the beginning of a special session of the 28th International Nathiagali Summer College.

The NCP is the representative of Cern in Pakistan. On the occasion, Dr Blechschmidt said: “With signing of the protocol between the PAEC, NCP and Cern, Pakistan has joined a special club of nations at Cern, namely Canada, India, Israel, Japan, Russia and the US.”

These are the only non-European nations which so far have made a substantial contribution to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, which will start operation in 2007, he added.

“The LHC will look deeper than ever before into the secret beauties of nature,” he said.

The PAEC chairman said Cern was helping the commission in conducting scientific and engineering research with other international organizations.

He said the PAEC had already manufactured and shipped equipment worth $4 million. After signing the protocol, the PAEC will be able to manufacture complex, high-precision additional equipment worth over $10 million for export to Geneva, he added.