The 3rd Steering Committee Meeting of the Preparatory Office, China-Cambodia Environmental Cooperation Center (hereinafter referred to as the China-Cambodia Center), co-hosted by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) of China and the Ministry of Environment (MOE) of Cambodia, was hold online on October 22, 2020. Professor Yang Min, Deputy Director of the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences (RCEES), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was invited to join the meeting together with RCEES colleagues.

The meeting was co-chaired by Zhou Jun, Deputy Division Director of the International Cooperation Department of MEE, and Chuop Paris, Director General of the General Department of Environmental Knowledge and Information of MOE. It started with an address given by Zhai Guiying, Deputy Director of the Foreign Environmental Cooperation Center (FECO) of MEE. Zhai outlined the achievements of the cooperation between MEE and MOE in atmospheric environment monitoring, low-carbon demonstration zones, and combating the pandemic over the period. She particularly figured out that to further enhance the preparatory work of the China-Cambodia Center, FECO and RCEES have signed a comprehensive framework agreement in September,2020, and that RCEES will dispatch staff to the Preparatory Office of China-Cambodia Center on behalf of MEE. The Division Director Tang Yandong introduced the achievements of the cooperation between MEE (including RCEES) and MOE of Cambodia in all areas over the past year, and put forward suggestions for the cooperation in the next step.

As pointed out by Yang Min, since all of the instruments for online water quality monitoring and laboratory analysis have been delivered from RCEES, it is now the time to establish a mechanism to make full use of these instruments for environmental management in Cambodia. RCEES will provide all-round support in personnel training, high-end talents fostering, and environmental site investigation, as well as the standards-setting under the scheme of the China-Cambodia Center.

The cooperative relationship between RCEES and MOE of Cambodia was established in 2016, and has been further strengthened with a memorandum of the cooperation between CAS and MOE, which was signed by Bai Chunli, the CAS President and Say Samal, the Minister of MOE in March 2018. It has assisted Cambodia in improving its water quality monitoring capability with the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Key Project on International Sci-tech Innovation Cooperation and through measures such as the establishment of the China-Cambodia Joint Lab for Water and Environment Research and the Online Water Quality Monitoring Station for Mekong River. Since 2017, RCEES has joined the efforts of MEE in the establishing the China-Cambodia Center. On September 2, 2020, it signed with the MEE FECO a Framework Agreement on Jointly Promoting China-Cambodia Ecological Environment Cooperation, which marks the formal participation of RCEES in the establishment of the China-Cambodia Center.

The main venue at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) of China

The sub-venue at the Ministry of Environment (MOE) of Cambodia

Sub-venue at RCEES, CAS

Office of International Cooperation, RCEES, CAS

CAS-TWAS Centre of Excellence for Water and Environment

October 22, 2020