Xie Zhenhua, the director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, met on March 20 with Hans Christian Schmidt, the Danish Minister of the Environment and the delegation he was leading. Danish Ambassador to China Ole Lonsmann Poulsen was present on the occasion.

They exchanged ideas on international environmental issues of common concern, the importance of public environmental awareness, wind-power electrical generation and issues relating to the effective use of other recoverable energy.

Xie gave an account of how Chinese major cities release air and water quality information and stressed the importance of such release to the general public. He said that it is conducive to public supervision as well as to the improvement of public environmental awareness.

The Danish Minister agreed with Xie and said that the Danish government also sets great store by the importance of public environmental awareness and the right of the general public to know. The minister said that the environmental factor is given due attention in every process of production.

Xie said that China has taken a series of active steps in the last few years to protect its natural forests and return farmland on hill slopes to forested land. China began in 1998 to forbid the logging of all primitive forests. Of the one million unemployed lumberjacks, 760,000 have become tree planters or forest rangers. China plans to add 32 million hectares of forested land by 2010, Xie said.

Xie said that China encourages the use of wind-power electrical generation wherever the conditions permit. Wind-driven electrical power stations are being built in collaboration with foreign countries in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Hebei. He said that there is great potential for the development of the recoverable energy in China. He said that the Chinese government attaches great importance to the energy issue for it has a close bearing on the environment and development.

Xie said that the new generation of the Chinese leadership will pay still greater attention to environmental protection. The government work report presented at the 10th NPC dealt with the environmental issues more than any previous one.

Xie hoped that there will be more substantial bilateral exchange and cooperation with Denmark in the cycle economy, environmental protection industry and clean development mechanism.

(www.cenews.com.cn March 24, 2003)