There was a Pure Finland Clean Day event in Beijing, on Nov 25, where the city of Beijing's Economic and Technological Development Area, or E-town, established ties with Finland's Trade Science and Technology Center to set up a China-Finland ecological innovation park in E-town, to encourage exchanges and the use of hi-tech and clean energy by the two countries.

The agreement calls for a Sino-Finnish Ecological Innovation Park, along with an information sharing site for cooperating on ecological standards for industrial development in E-town, and special funds for technology, clean energy, and environmental protection research. The first cooperative project will be to promote energy saving and green, low-carbon industries in the park.

The idea of building the ecological industrial park with a foreign country comes from a Commerce Ministry policy that encourages international cooperation in energy-saving and environmental protection. In response to this policy, many cities in China, such as Qingdao, Shandong province, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, Shenyang, Liaoning province, and Chengdu, Sichuan province, have established ecological parks by cooperating with the UK, Switzerland, Finland, Italy, Canada, Germany, France, Austria, Sweden, and Denmark.

The cooperative park ventures help introduce advanced environmental concepts, technology and standards from western countries to help China make more progress in greening, and a low-carbon, cyclic economy. This Sino-Finnish park is a trial run for Beijing and an active move on its part for research on energy-saving, air, water and waste pollution, and architectural improvements.

Edited by Fang Sha and Roger Bradshaw