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

(Written by Xu Junhao / Translated by Xie Zongming）

In China, the idea “green mountains are as valuable as gold mountains” ushers 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 experiencing the 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, China-ASEAN Year of Sustainable Development Cooperation, the two sides reached consensus on such identical goals.

Resources and environment, by which human race live on, 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 coordinates 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 the water, air contamination caused by household waste and eliminated secondary pollution, pushing the recycle rate as high as 95%.

Countless environmental techs like this show up every year in the CAEXPO. In the 17th CAEXPO, the China-ASEAN International Environment Protection Exhibition has attracted 41 famous enterprises and institutions to show their technologies in water treatment, atmosphere treatment, solid waste disposal, as well as resources recycle, soil contamination control and ecosystem recovery. The CAEXPO, play 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 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.. “CAEXPO has brought us many opportunities and has brought the excellent companies to the world. Moreover, ASEAN enterprises are also brought into our Chinese market. This is a win-win platform.”

For years have 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 production, the plant can consume 4000t of household waste per day, making huge contribution to protecting the environment and implementing the sustainable development.

In the future, the urbanization of ASEAN countries will inevitably create a bigger market of environmental technology. By then, the CAEXPO will keep playing 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 industrial and market, the 8th CAEXPO set the theme of environmental cooperation for the first time. The 1st China-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 environment protection. Since then, the forum has been held for the following consecutive years and has promoted the high-level exchanges on environmental policy-making, environmental experience and techs.

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 expressed 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 buliding 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 using disposable materials and create a standard for environment-friendly expos. In this perspective, CAEXPO practices environment protection with environmental materials and informatized platform. Aside from these, it also set up exhibitions and forums about environment protection, creating an environment protection system that covers a wide range of levels and fields. 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 18th CAEXPO will offer more quality exhibitions and forums about 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 China-ASEAN Expo Secretariat, the 18th CAEXPO will continue to have 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 in China-ASEAN environmental cooperation.