Russia establishes sole isotope exporter

Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear energy corporation, has prohibited its subsidiary companies from exporting isotopes independently and has established a unified exporter of the materials. Sergey Kiriyenko, head of Rosatom, said that, "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 isotopes supplies but sell products at very low prices as raw materials." He added that as a result of the move "we have already managed to raise the prices of some items by as much as ten times. And nothing awful has happened: our consumers have survived this." Kiriyenko suggested that Russia to stop exporting "raw isotopes" and start using isotopes "for manufacturing export-oriented high-tech products."