Amongst other agreements, China and AL signed the Joint Communiqué on Environmental Cooperation (referred to as the Joint Communiqué) on June 1, 2006. The Joint Communiqué is an important instrument that aims at deepening the regional environmental partnership between the two parties. Since the signing of the Joint Communiqué, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection have coorganized two environmental protection training courses in June 2006 and June 2007 respectively in China. __