Green CAEXPO Reflects ASEAN’s Dream for “Lucid Water and Lush Mountains”

Written by Xu Junhao/Translated by Xie Zongming

In China, the idea of “green mountains are as valuable as gold mountains” promotes the country to care for both economic development and environment preservation. It is the direction and destination of China’s endeavour. Meanwhile,ASEAN countries are undergoing a similar process of urbanization and economic structural adjustment,which means holding the “green mountains and gold mountains” in hand is also their wishes. In 2021, the Year of China-ASEAN Sustainable Development Cooperation, the two sides reached consensus on such identical goals.

Resources and environment, by which human race live on, are deeply intertwined with the idea of sustainable development. Environment protection is inevitable in sustainable development. The CAEXPO,dedicated to promoting China-ASEAN cooperation,has made significant contribution as a platform that coordinate the international environment protection cooperation.

Environmental businesses entered ASEAN through CAEXPO

Once the mixed household garbage goes through a series of process such as unpacking, deodorization,sterilization and fermentation, they will be divided into organic garbage and inorganic garbage by the intelligent sorting robot. The organic ones could be further processed into fertilizer, whereas the inorganic garbage like plastic waste could be recycled into other materials like industrial oil, equipment and antiseptics. This kind of technologies significantly reduce water and air contamination caused by household waste and eliminate secondary pollution,pushing the recycle rate as high as 95%.

Countless environmental techs like these showed up every year in the CAEXPO. In the 17thCAEXPO, the China-ASEAN International Environment Protection Exhibition has attracted 41 well-known enterprises and institutions to show their technologies in water and atmosphere treatment, solid waste disposal, as well as resources recycle, soil contamination control and ecosystem recovery. The CAEXPO, as a window, allows foreign businessmen to recognize the ability of Chinese environment protection enterprises, promoting Chinese environmental techs to the ASEAN and the world.

“With the help of the CAEXPO and the Environment Protection Exhibition, our company has signed several projects with companies in Vietnam, Cambodia and so on.” said Bai Yang, Deputy Managing Director of Guangxi Hongshengyuan Environmental Protection Technology Co.,Ltd. “The CAEXPO has brought us many opportunities and has brought some excellent companies to the world.Moreover, ASEAN enterprises are also brought into our Chinese market. This is a win-win platform.”

CAEXPO promotes environmental protection in energy, building materials, etc.

For years, the projects of environmental cooperation been launched and completed under the situation that China and ASEAN are developing closer relations in environmental cooperation. In Vietnam, there are the Yongxin coal-fired power plant and the Hanoi waste-to-energy plant project,both of which are jointly constructed by China and Vietnam. The under-construction Hanoi waste-to-energy plant project is considered as the solution to Hanoi’s household waste problem. Once in action the plant can consume 4,000t of household waste per day, making sizable contribution to protecting the environment and implementing the sustainable development.

In the future, the urbanization of ASEAN countries will inevitably create a bigger market for the environmental technology. By then, the CAEXPO will continue its role as a platform, providing opportunities for businesses in China and the ASEAN.

Expo that provides environmental cooperation system

Environmental cooperation is one of the 11 key fields of cooperation between China and ASEAN. After 2010 when the two sides actively implemented the “environmental cooperation strategy”, China-ASEAN environmental cooperation has been rapidly improving in respects of completion of system, range of cooperation, variety of contents and innovations. The CAEXPO played an irreplaceable role for this improvement.

To boost the founding and completion of China-ASEAN environmental cooperation system and the founding of China-ASEAN environmental industry and market, the 8thCAEXPO set the theme of environmental cooperation for the first time. The 1stChina-ASEAN Environmental Protection Cooperation Forum was held on top of this theme, which has become a dialogue platform for China and ASEAN countries to cooperate in the field of environmental protection. Since then, the forum has been held for the following consecutive years and has effectively promoted the exchange of environmental policy, experience and technology between China and ASEAN.

For instance, the 2019 China-ASEAN Environmental Cooperation Forum was themed “The Optimal Practice of Eco City Construction and Marine Ecosystem Sustainable Management”. At the forum, topics from policy making to industry anticipation, from top-level design to field implementation, from shared knowledge to case study were thoroughly discussed. Countries worked on sustainable development and reached their consensus on jointly promoting the shift towards the eco city, which also boosted the cooperation in related fields.

Moreover, the CAEXPO has been promoting environmental cooperation in an industrial sense as well.Except for the pollution treatment, cooperation around clean energy has been promoted by the long-held China-ASEAN Power Cooperation and Development Forum at the CAEXPO. The environmental-friendly building materials at the building materials section also grabbed the attention of ASEAN buyers for the past few years.

In 2018, Guangxi International Expo Affairs Bureau,along with the Expo Affair Bureaus in other Chinese provinces, signed the Kunming April Initiative. The initiative highlighted the sustainable development strategy as the principle, for which it urged expo organizer to practice environment-friendly ways when hosting an expo. Organizers should utilize information techs and new materials instead of disposable materials and set a standard for environment-friendly expos. In this perspective, the CAEXPO practices environment protection with environmental materials and informatized platform. Aside from these, it also set up exhibitions and forums of environment protection, creating an environment protection system that covers a wide range of levels and fields. The CAEXPO is a good example oriented toward China and ASEAN countries.

Environment protection faces new opportunities in the Year of Sustainable Development Cooperation

In the China-ASEAN Year of Sustainable Development Cooperation, the 18thCAEXPO will offer more quality exhibitions and forums under this topic, in order to aid the economic recovery after the pandemic with sustainable,flexible strategy. The China-ASEAN International Environment Protection Exhibition and China-ASEAN Environmental Cooperation Forum are likely to present valuable results.

According to the CAEXPO Secretariat, the 18thCAEXPO will continue to utilize environmental building material exhibition which includes energy-efficient building and intelligent home appliances. Technology exchange will also be conducted to promote new products and technologies in such field.

In this year of environmental protection, the CAEXPO will once again unite the hearts of environment care and provide opportunities for China-ASEAN environmental cooperation.