At a meeting to review work in the first half of this year and devise tasks for the remainder of the year, MoNRE Minister Nguyen Minh Quang said his ministry will seek donors for its key programmes while improving the efficiency and quality in its on-going international cooperation projects.

Quang also said that his ministry was working hard for organising the 11th conference of the Vietnam-China joint working group on meteorological cooperation and attending the 5th Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Summit and the 20 th GMS Ministerial Conference.

Leaders of the ministry will also join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Ministerial Meeting, the sixth round of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) negotiations, the sixth round of negotiations on cooperation in less sensitive issues at sea between Vietnam and China, and an ASEAN Working Group on Climate Change (AWGCC). The ministry has also drafted contents for attending the 11th Vietnam -the Republic of Korea Environment Ministerial Meeting , the 13th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity(COP13), the 20th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP20) and the 10th Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP10).

The ministry has proposed to take the Support Programme to Respond to Climate Change (SP-RCC) into the list of priority projects using official development assistance (ODA) capital for submitting to the Prime Minister for approval. It is working to promote the implementation of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation with its Russian counterpart in surveying geology and using mineral resources.

In the first half of this year, the ministry signed a funding agreement with the Australian Government on examining the impacts of hydropower projects on the Mekong River mainstream. The MoNRE inked a MoU on environment cooperation with Turkey’s Ministries of Environment and Urban Planning, and Forest and Water Affairs.