On Jan. 28, SEPA Minister Zhou Shengxian met with Russia's visiting Minister for Natural Resources Yuri Trutnev and his delegation in Beijing. Both sides exchanged views on the further development and use of water resources crossing the border of China and Russia.

Zhou Shengxian said the Chinese government highly valued pollution prevention and control of Songhua River. Over the past year efforts to control water pollution have furthered in all respects and recorded positive results through implementing the Program of Water Pollution Control of Songhua River (2006-2010) and the six measures to get the Songhua River recover. The year 2008 is particularly essential for China to carry out its environmental protection tasks under the Eleventh Five-year Program and all environmental efforts will progress steadily. This also marks precious opportunities for China and Russia to enhance bilateral exchanges and cooperation in this field. I am very glad to see the governments of both countries will soon sign an agreement on rational use and protection of transboundary water resources, which represents another outstanding progress in bilateral cooperation. We need to further our heart-to-heart exchanges and cooperation, strengthen leadership, improve related mechanisms and lose no time to implement agreed tasks in the future. I believe the expanded environmental cooperation between China and Russia will make more contributions to the development of our strategic partnership.

Yuri Trutnev sang high praise for the great efforts of SEPA for Sino-Russian cooperation in the field of environmental protection. He expressed his hope for more fruitful efforts in the future, which will continue to elevate bilateral cooperation and promote the development of environmental cause.