HONG KONG -- Nuclear power remains important to China's energy development strategy because of its quest for clean energy and climate change mitigation, Ren Junsheng, nuclear safety expert commission of China's Ministry of Environment Protection, said on March 10.

During a speech entitled "One year after the Fukushima nuclear accident -- the way forward with safety and risk engineering" in City University of Hong Kong, Ren said after the devastating Fukushima accident, China conducted safety inspections of its nuclear plants, the scope of which included appropriateness of site selection, ability to withstand earthquakes and floods, robustness of measures to address various extreme natural events and effectiveness of monitoring and emergency preparedness.

"The Chinese nuclear industry still feels confident to meet the installed capacity targets of 40 million and 70 million kilowatts by 2015 and 2020 respectively," he added.

Experts from Japan, Chinese mainland, China's Taiwan, France and the United States gathered in the university to share their insights on the Fukushima nuclear accident at the symposium jointly organized by the university's department of mechanical and biomedical engineering and the newly formed Hong Kong Nuclear Society.

Local and overseas experts agreed that the Fukushima accident had sparked off a global debate on how the world can meet growing demand and the role of nuclear energy. They pointed out that as the governments and regulators of nuclear nations are responding to public concerns about nuclear safety, whether the issue can be adequately addressed depends on how they act and what measures they take.