QINGDAO, June 22 -- The third foreign ministers' meeting of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) opened in Qingdao, a coastal city in east China's Shandong Province, on Tuesday.

　　Altogether 22 Asian foreign ministers or their representatives attended the meeting, presided over by Chinese Foreign Minister LiZhaoxing.

　　ACD, founded in June 2002, is the only official dialogue and cooperation mechanism open to Asia. It aims at integrating the present sub-regional cooperation in Asia, and promoting dialogue and cooperation among Asian countries.

　　ACD consists of 22 member states, including Bahrain, Bangladesh,Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan,the Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam.

　　So far, 16 ACD members have volunteered to take the lead in launching 18 regional cooperation projects, including an agricultural cooperation project by China, an environmental project by Japan, the establishment of ACD biotechnology consortium by India, small and medium-sized enterprise cooperationby Singapore and tourism by Thailand.

　　Some countries have raised conceptual documents of launching regional cooperation in specific fields, and have held relevant symposiums or forums.

　　As the leading country of ACD's agricultural and energy cooperation, China held the ACD Workshop for Agricultural Ministers in May 2004, which adopted the Joint Initiative of intensifying agricultural cooperation among ACD members.

　　China is working for the issuance of a document on energy cooperation, or Qingdao Initiative, at the on-going foreign ministers' meeting.

　　ACD's first and second foreign ministers' meetings were held in June 2002 in Cha-am in south Thailand, and in June 2003 in Chiang Mai, the second largest city of Thailand. Enditem