China, U.S. sign environmental deals

BEIJING, Colombia, May 24 (UPI) -- China Monday signed $72 million worth of environmental contracts and letters of intent with the United States, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The contracts will cover a dioxin monitoring lab, an automatic online monitoring system for power plants, a procurement program for a thermal film production line, a hazardous waste center designing and consulting system, and a plan for de-sulfurization. Xie Zhenhua, head of China's State Environmental Protection Administration, said the five programs are based on the plan of the environmental working group of the 15th meeting of the Sino-U.S. Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade.

He said the projects represent a "substantial progress" in Sino-U.S. environmental cooperation that begun during the early 1980s.

U.S. Ambassador to China Clark Randt said he was happy to see American companies active in China.