The 11th China-ASEAN Expo and China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit were held lately in Nanning, the capital city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in South China. Zhang Gaoli, a member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Political Bureau and Vice Premier of the State Council, attended the opening ceremony and delivered an important address. MEP Vice Minister Li Ganjie attended the ceremony on behalf of the Ministry.
As one of the events of China-ASEAN Expo, ASEAN-China Environmental Cooperation Forum 2014 was held in Nanning between September 17 and 18. The forum was sponsored by MEP and regional government of Guangxi, co-sponsored by ASEAN Secretariat, and organized by China-ASEAN Environmental Cooperation Center and Guangxi regional Environmental Protection Department. MEP Vice Minister Li Ganjie, Vice Chairman of the regional government Tang Renjian, and environmental vice-ministers of ASEAN member countries addressed the forum on invitation. Nearly 200 participants came to the event, including delegates from international partners like ASEAN member countries, ASEAN Secretariat, UNEP, UNIDO, ADB, Stockholm Environment Institute of Sweden, and WWF, and from MEP, Guangxi regional government, and relevant Chinese institutions, as well as local government officials, scholars, and business delegates.
In his keynote speech, Li noted the Asia-Pacific economy is in good momentum and has become an important engine driving the world economic recovery and sustainable growth. In the meantime, the underlying impact of the international financial crisis is still in play, and there are increasingly pressing global challenges like climate change, ecological degradation, resource crisis, and major natural disasters, therefore, it is an enduring and challenging task to exercise global economic and environmental governance. In this context, to enhance China-ASEAN environmental cooperation is both the need for respective development of China and the world countries and the positive contribution to the global sustainable development.
Li briefed the forum on the progress made by China in the fields of ecological civilization development and environmental protection. He noted China has attached great importance on environmental protection and sustainable development, regarded the development of ecological civilization and institutional reform of eco-environmental protection as important strategic tasks, and strive to open new prospects of harmonious development of man and nature. China will, under the overall guidance of developing ecological civilization, and aiming at building a beautiful country, go all out to address pressing environmental problems that have adverse impact on scientific development and public health, actively explore new pathway which is protecting the environment in the development course and seeking development during environmental protection, and work faster to advance the strategic transformation of environmental management.
Moreover, Li said, China's ecological civilization development is an open and inclusive effort. China and ASEAN share the common challenges and opportunities in respect of green transformation of regional economic development, which makes the bilateral cooperation an essential force for promoting regional sustainable development. In the recent decade, in particular, since the establishment of China-ASEAN Environmental Cooperation Center in 2010, new developmental opportunities have come for the bilateral environmental cooperation. The two sides have endorsed environmental cooperation strategies, mapped out action plans for second-phase cooperation, and given priority to advancing the cooperation in the fields of biodiversity and ecological conservation, environmental industry and technical exchanges, environmental management capacity building, and joint research programs. They also initiated and implemented China-ASEAN Green Envoys Program, and developed the framework for China-ASEAN environmental technological and industrial cooperation. The two sides successfully explored new models designed for fruitful regional environmental cooperation and South-South environmental cooperation.
Li put forward three proposals in order to deepen the China-ASEAN environmental cooperation and achieve regional green development, a.) work together to build a green silk road at sea, and build a community for regional environmental cooperation; b.) enhance policy communications and capacity building, and establish a multi-layer, wide-ranging cooperation platform and network; c.) take the initiative to conduct environmental technological and industrial cooperation, and inject new impetus for regional green development.
ASEAN-China Environmental Cooperation Forum is an important platform for China and ASEAN member countries to have dialogues and facilitate exchanges and pragmatic cooperation in the environment field. Since it was initiated in 2011, this annual event has been successfully held for three years.
