The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) and the Environment Bureau/Environmental Protection Department (ENB/EPD) of Hong Kong Tuesday signed a new Cooperation Arrangement on tackling air pollution.

Director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the MEP Xu Qinghua and Hong Kong's Permanent Secretary for the Environment Anissa Wong signed the agreement.

Wong said the MEP and EPD have over the years established close collaboration for sharing experience and professional knowledge in air pollution control. The new arrangement builds on this strong foundation and sets out clearly the cooperation areas between the two parties in the next five years.

Since the signing of the current arrangement in 2005, the MEP and EPD, together with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, have jointly held several workshops involving experts and participants from overseas on controlling vehicle emissions, a key air pollution concern among cities worldwide. The two parties have also held meetings to exchange views on specific air pollution control issues.

Appreciating the benefits of these exchanges, the two parties consider it useful to strengthen cooperation by signing a new arrangement, under which both sides will draw up annual cooperation plans alongside a five-year work agenda.

Under the new five-year working agenda, the main areas of interest will cover emissions control in both new and in-use vehicles; control on motor vehicle fuels; traffic management measures such as labeling of green vehicles, setting up of low emission zones; vehicle emission modeling and compilation of vehicle emission inventory; control of volatile organic carbon emissions and photochemical pollution; and storm dust notification system.