China’s Vice Minister for the Environment, Zhao Yingmin, and Svenja Schulze, Germany’s Minister for the Environment, have reinforced the strategic environmental partnership of the two countries. Based on decades of fruitful exchange, Germany and China advocated intensifying their bilateral cooperation on water and soil protection, biodiversity conservation, and environmental labelling.

This strategic dialogue took place in the frame of the 6^th Sino-German Environment Forum, which was held on 30-31 October 2019 in Beijing. Under this year’s guiding theme “Towards 2030: Accelerating change through innovation for greener development” 290 high level representatives from Chinese and German ministries, businesses, academia and civil society organisations came together to discuss future directions of sustainable development.

Three parallel sub-forums on climate change, biodiversity, as well as circular economy and chemicals’ management gave participants an opportunity to exchange about state-of-the-art environmental protection approaches. The interactive setting of the sub-forums catalised in-depth dialogue on these environmental priorities. Univocally, a strong environmental governance system and the involvement of all actors, including the private sector, were regarded as important.

On the second day of the Environment Forum, an enterprise exchange was organized by the China Association of Environmental Protection Industry (CAEPI) with support of the German Industry and Commerce (AHK) Greater China. In the quickly evolving green innovation scene, this match making event offered Chinese and German enterprises a unique opportunity to discuss their market approaches and develop business collaborations for ultimately greening the private sector.

From the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), Deputy Director Generals Xiao Xuezhi (International Cooperation), Liu Ning (Nature and Ecology Conservation), Sun Zhen (Climate Change) and other representatives participated in the Forum. The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) was represented by the Director-Generals Karsten Sach (Climate Policy), Gertrud Sahler (Chemical Safety) and Deputy Director-General Josef Tumbrinck (Nature Conservation) etc. The German Ambassador, Clemens von Götze, and the Deputy Head of the EU Delegation, Timothy Harrington, also attended the event.

This year’s Sino-German Environment Forum was hosted by MEE, BMU and the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA). It was organized by the Foreign Environmental Cooperation Center (FECO) of MEE, CAEPI and GIZ’s “Sino-German Environmental Partnership” and “Strategic Environmental Dialogues“ Projects.