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The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) and the Environment Bureau/Environmental Protection Department (ENB/EPD) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) today (October 26) signed a new Co-operation Arrangement (CA) on tackling air pollution.
Signing the agreement were the Director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the MEP, Mr Xu Qinghua, and the Permanent Secretary for the Environment, Ms Anissa Wong.
Ms Wong said: "The MEP and EPD have over the years established close collaboration for sharing experience and professional knowledge in air pollution control. The new CA builds on this strong foundation and sets out clearly the co-operation areas between the two parties in the next five years, i.e., 2011-2015."
Since the signing of the current CA in 2005, the MEP and EPD, together with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, have jointly held several workshops involving experts and participants from overseas on controlling vehicle emissions, a key air pollution concern among cities worldwide. The two parties have also held meetings to exchange views on specific air pollution control issues.
Appreciating the benefits of these exchanges, the two parties consider it useful to strengthen co-operation by signing a new CA, under which both sides will draw up annual co-operation plans alongside a five-year work agenda.
Under the new five-year working agenda, the main areas of interest will cover:
*emissions control in both new and in-use vehicles;
*control on motor vehicle fuels;
*traffic management measures such as labeling of green vehicles, setting up of low emission zones, etc;
*vehicle emission modelling and compilation of vehicle emission inventory;
*control of volatile organic carbon emissions and photochemical pollution; and
*storm dust notification system.
Ends/Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Issued at HKT 15:31
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