China signed five environmental contracts and letters of intent worth a total of 72 million US dollars with the United States Monday.

Covering priorities of China's environmental protection, the five programs are a Dioxin Monitoring lab program, an automatic online monitoring system demonstration program for power plants, aprocurement program of a thermal film production line, a hazardouswaste center designing and consulting program and a power plant desulfurization program.

Xie Zhenhua, head of China's State Environmental Protection Administration, said the five programs were based on the plan of the environmental working group of the 15th meeting of the Sino-USJoint Commission on Commerce and Trade.

The signing of the documents indicated a "substantial progress"of Sino-US environmental cooperation which started from the early 1980s, he said.

US Ambassador to China Clark T. Randt said he was happy to see American companies are active in China, and hoped they will bring more innovative environmental technologies to the country.

Source: Xinhua