The IET has been involved in taking CMES members through professional registration for the CEng and IEng qualifications and will be presenting these certificates at the CMES annual conference in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province, in July.

CMES is a key member of CAST (The Chinese Association of Science and Technology) with which the IET also has a strong relationship - Robin McGill visited CAST in Beijing early this year.

McGill said: "The IET is working on the development of an agreement with CAST which will coincide with the official opening of their new headquarters later this year. We want to build upon our initial relationships with CMES and CAST as we recognise the importance of China in developing our position as the foremost learned society for science, engineering and technology.”

The CMES and the IET have also collaborated in running conferences and the meeting discussed future work on a CMES international conference to be held in Kunming, China in March 2009. A forerunner to this will be a workshop in Beijing later this year to identify further areas for the respective organisations to work together.

Yanmin is said to have been impressed with what he saw of the IET and commented that he wished he had more time to learn about the IET's broad range of activities. He was accompanied throughout his trip by Liang Ying who works in the Department of International Affairs of CMES and acted as interpreter.