In order to promote and strengthen the cooperation and exchanges between China and the DPRK in the field of science and technology, the Chinese and DPRK Governments established "the Chinese-DPRK Commission for Scientific and Technological Cooperation" in 1957, for the purpose of conducting regular exchanges of views annually. The Commission has up to now held 41 regular meetings. Since the establishment of the Commission, the two sides have implemented a total of over 2,000 projects for exchanges and cooperation, involving a multitude of fields such as metallurgy, chemical industry, textile, industry, agriculture, water conservancy, electric power, transportation, architecture, medicine, trade and commerce. It has given a strong push to the steady development of the scientific and technological cooperation between China and the DPRK, and has laid a sound foundation of its sustained development in future.
Since 2002, the exchanges between the Academies of Sciences between the two countries and between trades and industries and scientific research institutes in such fields as earthquake, meteorology, hydrology, maritime, information software industry, environmental protection, agriculture, architecture have become active day by day, and a new round of agreements for scientific and technological cooperation between corresponding departments have been signed. In particular, the projects under the agreements in such fields as earthquake, meteorology and hydrology have progressed smoothly, and the bilateral mechanism for interaction has been in sound operation. In accordance with the agreements, the two sides have carried out extensive cooperation in many forms in such fields as exchanges of materials, research on scientific and technological information, document retrieval, data processing, analytical prediction and mutual visits of scientists, academic exchanges and training of technical personnel, and have produced good results of mutual benefit and win-win situation.
According to incomplete statistics, in 2006, a total of 30-odd delegations/groups for the purposes of visit, study, exchange or training were sent to each other's side by competent government scientific and technological departments, local counterpart units, scientific associations, people's organizations or enterprises of the Chinese and DPRK sides.
In recent years, the exchanges of visit by the Chinese and DPRK scientific and technological delegations and the bilateral scientific and technological activities have developed steadily on the whole. On the occasion of the founding of the DPRK Academy of Sciences in 2002, Xu Guanhua, Minister of Science and Technology of China, sent a letter of congratulations. In May of the same year, Wu Zhongze, Head of Group for Inspecting Discipline of the Ministry of Science and Technology, led a scientific and technological delegation to pay a visit to the DPRK, and in October, a delegation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences headed by President Lu Yongxiang visited the DPRK. In May 2004, Xu Shanyan, Vice-President of the China Association for Science and Technology, led a delegation to visit the DPRK. In September of the same year, E Jingping, Vice-Minister of Water Conservancy, led a delegation of the Ministry of Water Conservancy to attend the 11th Meeting on Cooperation in Hydrological Science and Technology convened in Pyongyang. In May 2005, Byun Yong Ip,President of the DPRK Academy of Sciences, led a delegation to attend the Exposition of High and New Technologies in Northeast Asia convened in Shenyang. In June 2006, Li Ui Gu,Vice-President of the DPRK Academy of Sciences, led a delegation to visit China. In the same month, a delegation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences headed by Bai Junli, Executive Vice-President of the academy, visited the DPRK.