World's major pharmaceutical and chemical enterprise Bayer AG will contribute US$1 million to China's Tongji University in the next five years to establish a chair for sustainable development.

 

Bayer signed a memorandum of understanding with Tongji University in Leverkusen. Germany Monday concerning the establishment of the chair.

 

Under the document, Bayer will support this initiative with funding and non-cash contributions totaling US$1 million for an initial period of five years.

 

Tongji University attaches maximum priority to the subjects of environmental protection and sustainable development, said Dr. Wang Gang, President of Tongji University in Shanghai.

 

The cooperation enables both sides to offer international students a first-class program of studies in this area, he said.

 

At the same press conference, Bayer and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) endorsed their collaboration in global youth environmental activities.

 

Bayer and UNEP concluded a cooperation agreement in June 2004 with an initial duration of three years. Under the agreement, Bayer will provide an annual funding of one million euros as well as implement some individual projects with UNEP.

 

Only comprising the chemical industry into the overall global environmental protection move could the great millennium goal of the UN be realized, said Professor Klaus Topfer, the UNEP Executive Director.

 

As the world's largest developing countries, China is now confronted with the contradiction between rapid social development and limited resources and worsening environment, said Wan.

 

Through cooperation with transnational enterprises such as Bayer, Tongji hopes to pass the concept of sustainable development to the Chinese, he said.

 

China has made some improvements in environmental protection as the concept has become a common sense of the top leaders of the government, said Dr. Topfer.

 

UNEP and Tongji University signed an agreement in May 2002 to establish the UNEP Tongji Institute for the Environment and Sustainable Development in Tongji.

 

In the past few years, the institute provided advanced training courses on the environment and sustainable development for future managers in the Asia Pacific region.

 

It will accept master students for a course of study specializing in the environment and sustainable development this year, the first one for UNEP to cooperate with a university on matters on higher education ending with an academic title.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 21, 2006)