China is seeking to step up cooperation with other developing nations including Mexico to address climate change while maintaining economic growth, Chinese Ambassador to Mexico told an audience at a university?in Mexico City?on Wednesday.
"China wishes to protect the environment and develop its economy at the same time," Yin Hengmin said when addressing an audience at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the nation's largest.
"There is a clear understanding that developing nations have a responsibility, although developed nations have more responsibilities since they started their industrial development earlier," he said.
Climate change has been an issue at the G20 London Summit in April, which mainly focused on the global economic recession. G20 groups include?the seven most industrialized nations as well as the European Union, China, Russia, Brazil, India, Turkey, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, South Korea, South Africa and Saudi Arabia.
Yin said that China hopes to tackle the issue with Mexico and others at the upcoming G20 summit in the US city of Pittsburgh on Sept. 24-25.
"We have a clear position," he said, "It is a commitment to responsibilities made in the U.N. framework, in the Kyoto Protocol and the Bali roadmap."
He was referring to the legally binding international environment treaty adopted in Japanese city of Kyoto under which countries will reduce their collective emission of greenhouse gases and a clear agenda agreed by over 180 countries in Indonesian resort island of Bali to tackle global warming.
As part of the efforts, China is working to reduce its energy dependence on coal, one of the most polluting fossil fuels, and to switch to other resources including nuclear, solar, hydroelectric and other energies that produce less carbon dioxide (CO2).
CO2 is the most common example of a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere and contributes to large unpredictable changes in the weather system.
As for economic development, Yin said China has more to share with Mexico by boosting mutual investments.
"There is a 17.5-billion-US dollar trade volume between China and Mexico," he said, noting that China enjoys a trade surplus in bilateral trade.
He encouraged Mexican businessmen to take bolder actions when investigating the Chinese market, citing Mexican bread maker Bimbo and Grupo Modelo which sells beers under the brand Corona as two successful cases.
"I am happy to find Chinese beer Tsingtao in Mexico and I am just as happy to find Corona in China," he said.
He also said that Chinese business people welcome competition. "China is not looking for a surplus (in bilateral trade). China is looking for positive growth."
Yin said that he is urging state inspectors in Beijing to schedule tours to inspect the animal and food hygiene situation in Mexico, a move that would open China's pork market to Mexican exports, under a treaty signed by Mexican President Felipe Calderon during his July 2008 official visit to China.
"I am urging state administrators to send experts to Mexico. I believe there is great potential for pork," he said, describing it as one of many areas where China and Mexico could collaborate.
He said China has worked hard to spur domestic consumption with a 585-billion-dollar stimulus plan aiming to boost annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth to 8 percent, a rate needed to create jobs for some 8 million people entering China's job market every year.
"All nations can benefit from China's growth and development," Yin said, citing the Three Gorges Dam hydropower generation project on the Yangtze River, which has created work for foreign companies such as Alstom of France, ABB of Switzerland, Kvaerner of Norway, General Electric of the United States and Siemens of Germany.
(Xinhua News Agency August 27, 2009)
