1. The 23rd meeting of the Joint Committee on Environmental Cooperation between the Republic of Korea and the People’s Republic of China will take place at a Lotte Hotel, Seoul, on January 23 and 24 to discuss ways to step up environmental cooperation on the bilateral, regional and global levels. In conjunction with the Joint Committee meeting will come on January 22 the third director-general-level meeting on bilateral environmental cooperation and the first meeting of the steering committee of the ROK-China Environmental Cooperation Center.

° The ROK and Chinese delegations to the Joint Committee meeting will be led by Director-General for the Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Scientific Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kwon Sei-joong and Director-General for the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment Guo Jing, respectively.

° The ROK’s top delegate to the other two meetings will be Director-General for the Climate Change Policy Bureau of the Ministry of Environment Hwang Suk-tae.

2. In the forthcoming meetings, the two countries will discuss outstanding issues and matters of interest in the area of environment. The agenda of those meetings will be as follows.

° The director-general-level meeting will cover cooperation projects in the areas of air, water quality and soil, main environmental issues of the two countries, while the steering committee will discuss the work plan of the ROK-China Environmental Cooperation Center for the year 2019 and ways to run the Center.

° In the Joint Committee meeting, the two sides will share with each other their current, respective domestic environmental policies; and exchange views on matters of interest of the two countries, including fine dust and other forms of air pollution as well as yellow dust; the prevention and management of water contamination; the environmental industry and technology; responses to marine pollution; and ways to enhance environmental cooperation on the regional level (the North-East Asian Subregional Programme for Environmental Cooperation {NEASPEC} and the Tripartite Environment Ministers Meeting among the ROK, China and Japan {TEMM}).

3. The director-general-level meeting has taken place on an annual basis since "a letter of intent for closer environmental cooperation between the ROK and China" was concluded during the 18^th TEMM held in Japan in April 2016. The upcoming steering committee meeting will mark the first of its kind since the opening of the ROK-China Environmental Cooperation Center on June 25, 2018.

4. The meeting of the ROK-China Joint Committee on Environmental Cooperation has been held in the two countries on an annual and rotational basis pursuant to the bilateral Agreement on Environmental Cooperation concluded in 1993, and through the Committee, the two countries have implemented cooperation projects in the full range of environmental areas, including relevant technology and research on marine environment.

* unofficial translation