On December 27, 2022, Mr. SOHN Chang-ho, Counsellor of Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Beijing, visited the International Hydrogen Energy Center. Mr. Qinxian Jin, Vice Secretary General of Tsinghua University, also the Director of Beijing Tsinghua Industrial R&D Institute (BTIRDI), Mr. Xiaolong Fu, tAssociate Director of BTIRDI and Ms. April Qian, Head of Global Affairs of BTIRDI, attended the meeting.

Counsellor SOHN Chang-ho paid visits to the innovative institutes under BTIRDI in Zhongguancun Dongsheng International Science Park, including Global Health Drug Discovery Institute (GHDDI) and Beijing Medical Robotics Industry Innovation Center (IMC). Especially, the visit focused on the IHEC Beijing headquarters, where the international hydrogen exhibition hall shows the complete industry chain of the production, storage, transportation and application of hydrogen energy in a full view, as well as the progress of UNIDO hydrogen energy projects and the current development situation of hydrogen energy industry in the UK, Australia, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and other countries, which were highly appreciated by the Counsellor. The two sides also held a meeting in the IHEC.

During the meeting, Director Jin introduced the basic situation of Tsinghua university and BTIRDI. Mr. Jin said that hydrogen energy is a priority of the strategy of BTIRDI, for which the institute has cultivated Sinohytec, which has listed on China’s STAR Board, and other leading science and technology companies in the field. Recently, with the support of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology and the China International Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges, BTIRDI has cooperated with UNIDO to build the IHEC, and successfully held the first International Hydrogen Energy Industry Development Forum, which has been highly praised by governments, scientific research institutions and leading enterprises around the world. At present, the IHEC is collaborating with world’s top scientific research institutions and leading enterprises to jointly carry out hydrogen energy technology research and development, equipment manufacturing and application demonstration, and is building international demonstration zones of hydrogen energy industry in Daxing District, Beijing; Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province; and Baotou, Inner Mongolia. BTIRDI expects further exploration and cooperation with the ROK in the future, in a bid to continuously promote technology research and industry development of hydrogen energy in the world.

Counsellor SOHN Chang-ho said he’s very grateful that BTIRDI and IHEC invited him to attend the International Hydrogen Energy Industry Development Forum, and again invited him to visit the IHEC Beijing headquarter. According to him, the ROK government has always pay great attention to the development of hydrogen energy industry. The government has launched a national plan on hydrogen energy development. According to the plan, the ROK would widely cooperate with the rest of the world to build the “H2STAR” system of a global hydrogen energy network supply chain, with the focus on the production, infrastructure, application and cooperation ecosystem of hydrogen energy. In the future, the ROK would import a large quantity of green hydrogen and green ammonia, and continuously increase the application of hydrogen energy in heavy trucks, shipping, industry and other areas, so as to promote the development of carbon neutrality. Mr. SOHN Chang-ho also expects in-depth bilateral cooperation between China and the ROK in green hydrogen and green ammonia. He said he would invite more excellent Korean enterprises to visit BTIRDI and IHEC, in order to seek close cooperation partnership between Chinese and Korean enterprises, thus to jointly create a ecosystem circle of carbon neutrality.

The Two Sides Taking Pictures in the IHEC