China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) recently announced that it received the United Nations' Montreal Protocol Implementation Award at the 19th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol and also the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol which were commemorated in Montreal, Canada.

Zhang Lijun, Vice Minister of SEPA, accepted the award on behalf of SEPA. He said the Implementation Award shows the international community's confirmation of the Chinese Government's action to implement the Montreal Protocol. To achieve all the targets set up in the Montreal Protocol, there are still many difficulties and challenges ahead, but the Chinese Government would like to undertake its responsibility and fulfill the obligations as it always has done and conduct coordinated cooperation with other signing parties to push forward the cause of ozone layer protection.

At the same time, China will take an active and practical position in the fulfilling of the international convention on the environment, trying to play a more important role in the protection of the global environment. Twenty-four countries signed the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer on September 16, 1987 and 191 countries have signed the Montreal Protocol. Since it signed in 1991, China has eliminated the production of over 110,000 tons of ozone layer-consuming substances and stopped the consumption of over 100,000 tons of ozone layer-consuming substances. This accounts for 50 percent of the total eliminated amount of such materials in the developing world.