China Hails Progress in Int'l Cooperation in Environmental Protection

Headway has been made in China's efforts to work with other countries and international organizations to curb China's worsening pollution and environmental problems.

Wang Zhijia, director of the International Cooperation Department with the State Environmental Protection Administration of China (SEPA), listed the bilateral agreements China recently signed with Canada, Japan and Germany as examples.

The Chinese and Canadian governments have agreed to start a nature reserve protection project in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Wang said in a recent interview with reporters.

China has also signed preliminary agreements with the Japanese and German governments to initiate projects protecting the environment at areas surrounding the headwaters of the Yellow River, said the director.

The river, China's second longest, is notorious for its muddy water in flood seasons, as its upper and middle reaches repeatedly suffer serious losses of water and soil caused by massive deforestation over the past several centuries.

In an agreement China signed with the United States last month, the US will offer US$13.44 million in preferential loans to China so that China can buy air quality monitoring equipment from the American company Dasibi Environmental Corporation.

The deal says that 33 major Chinese cities will use the equipment to make daily reports and forecasts of their air quality.

Wang said China and Norway are expected to reach an agreement soon on a joint research project for acid rain prevention and control.

In the past four years, China has absorbed about US$4 billion U.S. dollars-worth of foreign funding needed for some of the country's 1,591 environmental protection projects, which are the first batch of projects in the 15-year environment protection program launched in 1997.

The program targets the country's widespread water and air pollution and rising mountains of solid waste.

The elimination of water pollution, the emission of sulfur dioxide and emission of auto exhaust in urban areas, along with the creation of an environment data system have been priorities in China's work with other countries and international organizations.

"China will continue to promote the cooperation in environmental protection with individual countries and international groups while improving non-governmental cooperation to facilitate its national environmental protection," Wang added.

Successful environmental protection work in China, an influential country with a population of 1.2 billion, would be an important contribution not only to the country itself but also to neighboring countries and the rest of the world, he said.

On bilateral and multilateral areas, Wang said China is working to sign agreements on environmental protection with some individual countries in South America and Africa.

China also wants to actively participate in multilateral environmental protection cooperation by improving its own environmental protection policies and complying with international conventions, he said.

Wang said SEPA aims to secure more overseas funding and technology for China's projects involving pollution control, environmental protection infrastructure and ecological protection.



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