MEP Vice Minister Li Ganjie met with Mr. Mats Denninger, the visiting high-level Swedish representative for Cooperation on Energy and Environmental Technology and his retinue on September 4. Both sides exchanged opinions on further cooperation in the environment field.

Li Ganjie first briefly introduced the progress China made in environmental protection. He said, Chinese Government paid close attention to the environmental problems accumulated in the rapid economic and social development process and adopted a series of policy measures in recent years to promote the solutions to them in an all-round way. The 1st meeting of the 11th National People’s Congress this year adopted the decision to establish Ministry of Environmental Protection. It is an important move of China to develop more systems and mechanisms for environmental management. The good air quality Beijing enjoyed during the Olympic Games also fully indicated that China' s comprehensive measures to treat air pollution had been effective, which built up the confidence in doing well in environmental protection.

Li Ganjie said China still faced very serious environmental situation for the moment. To achieve the targets set in the 11th Five-Year Plan period for environmental protection and earnestly improve eco-environmental quality needs not only the country’s own efforts but also more international cooperation, and the study of and reference to advanced concepts and technologies from abroad as well as constant improvement of the efforts in pollution prevention and control and environmental management. China and Sweden have kept close ties in environment field in recent years and the bilateral cooperation has been fruitful. In particular, they have laid a solid foundation for cooperation on the management of drinking water sources and hazardous chemicals. He was glad to see that for the moment all the cooperation projects are making progress steadily and hoped that both sides would cooperate deeper and in more fields, including air pollution treatment, disposal of solid wastes and biodiversity conservation. At the same time, he sincerely hoped more environmental enterprises from Sweden could compete in Chinese market with advanced concepts, technologies, and products.

Mr. Denninger congratulated on the successful Olympic Games organized by Beijing and appreciated the Country's close attention to bilateral environmental cooperation. He hoped that both sides would deepen and expand the fields of cooperation and contribute more to the environmental protection cause through effective efforts.