Chief executives from more than 30 French companies recently gathered at the Sino-France Ecological Park Cooperation Conference in Chengdu. The meeting was held to discuss issues such as ecological parks, the Internet, environment-friendly buildings, energy conservation and environmental protection.

At the conference, the China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group, the largest Chinese company engaged in the energy saving industry, and the Fortune 500 company Lafarge from France signed a Framework Convention on Projects for Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection. This marked the launch of a Sino-France Ecological Park Project in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan province.

Ten industrial parks, including the Chengdu economic and technological development zone, were decided for the first batch of pilot areas for building ecological industrial parks in the province.

Last November, China's Ministry of Commerce and France's Ministry of Finance signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Economic and Trade Cooperation in the Ecological Parks in Paris, which set to establish Sino-France ecological parks in three pilot cities: Chengdu, Chongqing, and Shenyang.

The project will help promote trade and investment cooperation between China and France in new industrial areas, such as energy conservation, environmental protection, new energies, new materials, and high-end equipment manufacturing.

Sichuan province has maintained good relations in trade, technological cooperation, and cultural communication with France. The total trade volume between the two sides stood at $673 million in 2010. There have been 76 French-invested companies in Sichuan as of October 2011, including Lafarge, Veolia, Carrefour and other World Fortune 500 companies.