A forum was held Tuesday in Beijing in a bid to seek non-governmental cooperation between China and Japan in water resources protection.

Organized by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC), the largest youth organization in China, the forum is aimed to promote the protection and better use of water resources in China and Japan through non-governmental cooperation between the two countries.

"China and Japan are neighbors only by a strip of water and cooperation in the water field is for the benefit of the people of both countries," said Zhao Yong, a member of the secretariat of the CYLC Central Committee, at Tuesday's opening ceremony of the forum.

With the theme of "Participation and Cooperation", the three-day forum will give a discussion floor to more than 300 experts and scholars in water protection from China and Japan on specific topics of administration, economy, culture, zoology and youth.

During the forum, a number of enterprise representatives will have business negotiations on technologies of water purification and recycling. Some Japanese participants will visit the Gaobeitian sewage water disposal plant in eastern Beijing.

Statistics with the Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources show that the average water resources per capita is only 2,200 cubic meters in China, merely a quarter of the world's average. About two thirds of the big and middle-sized cities in the country face water shortage.

"We must rely on the young people to tackle water problems as it is a hard and long-term task," said Zhao Yong.

In 1999, young people in China started an action to protect the Yellow River, the mother river of the Chinese nation.

"Chinese youth are playing a major part in China's environmental protection, including the protection of water resources," said Zhao.

Hashimoto Ryutaro, former Japanese prime minister, also attended Tuesday's opening ceremony. He said solutions to water issues required global cooperation and the forum provided a good opportunity for cooperation between young people in the two nations.

(Xinhua News Agency April 21, 2004)