From China, with a "learning heart"
27 May 2011
"We learned some very useful things that we will implement in our daily practice," says Guoqing Dai (third from right), the Deputy Director-General of the Department of Financial Support and Facilities at MOST.
As China becomes more and more involved in international scientific collaborations, government officials in Beijing are eager to examine the management policies such projects require.
"We want to make comparisons," explains Guoqing Dai, the Deputy Director-General of the Department of Financial Support and Facilities at the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST).
"We are very interested in how a project such as ITER is managed and, more specifically, what financial risk policies are being implemented."
Mr. Dai and the six-member delegation he was heading found some of the answers they were seeking last Wednesday as they met with ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima, Deputy Director-General (DDG) and Director of the ITER Administration Department Rich Hawryluk, DDG Shaoqi Wang, and Head of the ITER Project Office Peter Swenson.
"We learned some very useful things that we will implement in our daily practice," adds Guoqing Dai. "We were impressed by ITER's comprehensive and systematic financial procedures and also by how closely Management and Finance collaborate."
The delegation from MOST and the Chinese Ministry of Finances also had an obvious interest in the utilization of China's contribution to the project. "This is taxpayers' money and we are responsible for it," says Guoqing Dai. "We came with a 'learning heart' and feel very good about what we learned."