Lu Fuyuan, vice-minister at China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, and visiting Canadian Minister for International Cooperation Susan Whelan signed the documents in Beijing Thursday.

The four projects concern the adaptation of small farmers to the global market, the reform of China's prosecutor system, roads in western China and primary education capacity in western China.

China and Canada started to cooperate in development in 1982. They have agreed 91 projects involving 600 million Canadian dollars (US$410 million).

The projects cover areas such as agriculture, forestry, energy, transportation, education, telecommunications, environmental protection, human-resources development and poverty relief. Some 58 of the projects have been finished.

China and Canada are negotiating revisions to the Country Development Programming Framework, signed in 1994, and are expected to finish that work this year, said Chinese ministry officials.

Balanced development, environmental continuity and civil affairs will be the focus of Sino-Canadian development cooperation, they said.

Whelan arrived in China yesterday and will leave on Sunday. It is her first visit to China and she is scheduled to meet Chinese ministers and commissioners of agriculture, justice, the environment and foreign trade and economic co-operation.

She will also visit development projects in Beijing as well as in Xi'an in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

(People's Daily January 10, 2003)