Plans for Belarus-China organic food lab

Belarus and China have signed an agreement on opening a joint lab to create organic food and to transfer green technologies, BelTA has learned.

The lab will carry out research into ecology and the engineering of products, technologies and materials safe for the environment. The Belarusian division of the lab will operate at premises of the Physics and Chemistry Research Institute of the Belarusian State University while the Chinese division will be located in the Zhejiang Shuren University.

The agreement was signed as the Belarus-Zhejiang scientific and technical cooperation center was opened in the Belarusian State University. BSU Rector Sergei Ablameiko, the Director General of the Science and Technology Department of Zhejiang Province, and the Rector of the Zhejiang Shuren University took part in the ceremony.

“The operation of the Belarus-Zhejiang scientific and technical cooperation center will be aimed at promoting scientific ties between the Belarusian State University and industrial organizations and universities of Zhejiang Province. In particular, the center will be used to coordinate the scientific and technical projects that the BSU performs together with Chinese companies,” said the BSU Rector.

The center’s operation is supposed to contribute to the establishment of accessible and streamlined sharing of scientific and innovative achievements of both countries.

Sergei Ablameiko remarked that over the last two years the BSU and universities of the Chinese province have implemented three projects. Two of them have been included into the Belarusian-Chinese interstate program for cooperation in science and technology. Effective anticorrosion coatings for sea vessels are a collective product of BSU specialists and specialists of the Zhejiang Oceanography University. Two other projects were geared towards researching technologies to create new environmentally friendly packaging and materials for food industry, explained the BSU rector.

Zhejiang Province is China’s fourth most economically developed province and the third top province in terms of export in 2013. The province’s economy relies on major chemical and pharmaceutical enterprises, electronics manufacturers as well as small and medium private enterprises. The province boasts strong scientific potential: high-tech zones of the national scale, research centers and universities. In particular, the Zhejiang University is one of the largest in China.