Sino Italian Cooperation and Development Proposal - New Ideas for Holistic Approach Oriented to sustainable Management

The present meeting originates from previous CNR-CAS Joint Project involving CNR-Institute for Agricultural and Forest Systems in the Mediterranean (ISAFOM) and CAS - Cold and Arid regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute (CAREERI). During the last visit of the Italian Researchers in the experimental fields in Gansu province (PRC), specific meetings have been promoted by the CNR researchers with the Italian office for Cooperation and Development of the Italian Foreign Office in the Italian Embassy in Beijing. Within these meetings, the opportunity to improve the present CNR-CAS partnership devoted to the study on irrigation with saline water affecting Minqin Oasis agriculture in Gansu province have been focused. The present Sino-Italian Cooperation and Development Program provided to the Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China a 70 million Euro Soft Loan by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Italy with the aim to support eligible projects in the environmental sector in the Central and Western Provinces of China. This framework has been proposed by the CNR researchers as the chance to apply, at a regional scale, the knowledge acquired by the two research entities on the potential benefit of a sustainable approach to agricultural activities in Minqin Oasis involving, in the meanwhile, other expertises form Italian and Chinese partners. The main goals of the meeting could be briefly summarized as follow: i.share knowledge on Sino-Italian Cooperation and Development Program and related project proposals ii.introduce the leading topics and the general structure of a potential project proposal optimized for the Sino-Italian Cooperation and Development Program. iii.introduce expertise and related industrial partners from each member of the potential partnership iv.discuss the road map to be followed for per-proposal evaluation