On February 4, SEPA Vice Minister Li Ganjie met in SEPA office building with Khalid Malik, the visiting UNDP Representative to China. Both sides exchanged views on deepening the cooperation in fields of climate change, pollution control, and environmental education.

Mr. Li Ganjie welcomed Mr. Malik for his visit and introduced the environmental protection situation in China. He said Chinese Government attaches great importance to environmental protection and has made overall arrangements for the work in the new era. Over the recent years, the environmental cause has made progress thanks to a series of highly effective policy measures. Especially in energy saving and emissions reduction and response to the climate change, the Central Government set up a leading group chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao on energy saving and emissions reduction and on response to the climate change. It has constantly devoted more to this aspect and promote the work in an all-round way by adopting comprehensive measures. In 2007, China made important progress in reducing pollution and cut down the emissions of both SO₂ and COD despite the rapid economic growth and rise in consumption level.

Li Ganjie said the 17th National Congress of CCCPC last October proposed higher requirements for the international cooperation on environmental protection. SEPA will participate in international environmental cooperation more actively and pragmatically, constantly upgrade the work level by learning from advanced experience and technologies, and contribute more to the worldwide environmental protection while effectively improving domestic environmental quality. SEPA is grateful to UNDP in supporting and helping perform the international conventions, find alternatives to POPs or eliminate POPs, biodiversity conservation, and other areas. SEPA hoped to continue the close bilateral cooperation and work together for solutions of worldwide environmental problems.

Mr. Malik appreciated SEPA's recognition of cooperation with UNDP and hoped both sides to further extend the areas of cooperation, improve the cooperation mechanism so that the bilateral cooperation in environment field will make progress constantly.