At the invitation of Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and Norwegian Ministry of Energy, Madam Zhu Chengqing, Vice Minister of Water Resources, led a delegation to visit Finland and Norway from March 26 to April 2, 2025. During the talks with the heads of water management departments of two countries, Zhu highlighted the achievements of China’s high-quality development in water sector under the guidance of the President Xi Jinping’s water governance principles of “prioritizing water conservation, balancing spatial distribution, taking systematic approaches and promoting government-market synergy”, and further exchanged views on stepping up bilateral water cooperation.
As meeting with Sari Essayah, Finnish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Zhu pointed out that this year marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relation between China and Finland. On the basis of pilot projects in the fields of digital twin lakes and dam safety, Ministry of Water Resources of China is joining hands with the Finnish counterpart to implement the Sino-Finnish Water Resources Management Cooperation Implementation Plan (2024-2027), so as to expand and deepen practical cooperation in the spheres of water technology innovation and green development, and inject new impetus into the sustained and stable development of the future-oriented new-type cooperative partnership between China and Finland.
In the meeting with Elisabeth S
ther, Norwegian State Secretary of Energy, Zhu stressed that China and Norway signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the field of water resources in 2010. Based on enduring cooperation with Norway, Ministry of Water Resources of China is willing to encourage water related agencies of two sides to set up regular exchanges, and upgrade scientific and technological cooperation in the areas of flood and drought disaster prevention, hydrological monitoring, forecasting and early warning, utilization of new technologies for hydropower development, digital twin technologies applied in water sector, among others, so as to make new contributions to improving the well-being of the peoples.
High officials from Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Norwegian Ministry of Energy all spoke highly of China’s remarkable achievements in the process of sustainable development in water sector. Given enormous cooperation potentials with China in the field of water resources, they further expressed strong willingness to gear up exchanges and cooperation in scientific research, project cooperation, personnel exchanges and other areas, in order to jointly enhance water resilience.
During this visit, the delegation also held discussions with representatives from Finnish Water Association, Finnish water enterprises, water research and education institution of Mikkeli, as well as Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Agency, University of Oslo and Norwegian Institute of Water Ecology, and exchanged ideas on the topics of river and lake ecological environment protection and governance, resilient water infrastructure, small hydropower development, rural water supply, etc. Moreover, the Chinese delegates conducted on-site visits on Mikkeli Water Treatment Plant, water environment management project in Vesijevi Lake, and rainwater and flood management infrastructure in Bergen.
Source: INTCE