Denmark’s Ambassador to China, Friis Arne Petersen, Tuesday met with Vice Minister for Water Resources Jiao Yong together with the EU and Portuguese Ambassadors. Jiao Yong visited Denmark in 2010 and met again with Danish Minister of Environment in June the same year in China.
On top of the agenda was the new China Europe Water Platform, for which Denmark will be the lead country on the EU-side and work closely together with key EU partners and the EU delegation in Beijing. With today’s meeting, both sides are one step closer to the signing a Joint Statement at the sixth World Water Forum in Marseille in March 2012. Here, the Chinese Minister for Water Resources Chen Lei, the EU Commission and the Danish Minister for Environment, Ida Auken, will participate.
The Joint Statement sets the framework for future cooperation on policy development, research and business development in the water sector. These are all areas where EU and Denmark have substantial expertise. The Danish Ambassador points out how the intention of the partnership is not only to assist China, but to gain mutual benefits for Europe and China:
“I am delighted at the positive outlook for future EU engagement in water cooperation with China. My sincere hope, as lead country on EU side and representing the EU Member States as the EU Presidency, is that this new platform will serve its multiple purposes of mutual interests for both China and EU and its Members. For decades, Denmark has given huge political priority to water issues. Actually, though Denmark is a small country it is surrounded by water and has a coastline around half of China’s.”
In the new platform on water China will benefit from Danish and European knowledge on e.g. how to protect and purify water. This is an area in which both Europe and China face a number of challenges in the coming years.
Denmark already has a very strong Danish commercial presence – both in quantity and quality – within the water sector in China with presence at key geographic locations. In addition, Denmark’s substantial research cooperation with China will experience significant impetus with the start up in August 2012 of the Sino-Danish Center for Education and Research (SDC), where research and education in water and environment will be among the first disciplines launched.
The platform between the EU and China will among other things be about how to avoid floods, protect groundwater resources, handle pollution, shortage of water and administer large contiguous water areas.
