Vice Minister of Science and Technology Yin Hejun and Permanent Secretary of Finnish Ministry of Economy and the Employment Jari Gustafsson co-chaired the 16th session of the China-Finland Joint Committee Meeting on Science and Technology in Beijing on May 12, 2016. The meeting reviewed achievements and development of the bilateral cooperation in science and technology since the last session. Both sides had discussions focused on prioritized areas of common interest such as clean technology, information and communications, climate change and bio-economics. Both sides also talked about co-funding programs, connectivity of industrial technologies and exchange of research personnel.

Vice Minister Yin and the Permanent Secretary respectively introduced innovation policies and development in each country. Representatives from both sides had an exchange of views on basic research, key challenge-driven areas, science parks and innovation zones. Chinese representatives came from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Natural Science Foundation, and the Tianjin CPC Committee, the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Science and Technology, and partners from Shanghai and Suzhou. Finnish representatives were from the Ministry of Economy and the Employment, the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Academy of Finland, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovations(TEKES), and the Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd (VTT).

The two sides held a working-level meeting after the JCM focusing on technology forecasting, basic research, and working mechanisms of China-Finland S&T cooperation. The aim was to act on the consensus reached during the Joint Committee Meeting.