Japan and China agreed Tuesday on a model project to substantially improve energy efficiency at a major steel plant in Beijing, marking the first plan of the "Activities Implemented Jointly" for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry said Tuesday.

The project, to be carried out by the government-affiliated New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, is in line with AIJ initiatives agreed to at the first Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in April 1995, the ministry official said. The initiative, which calls for developing nations' voluntary efforts to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, is meant to be a pilot phase of the "Joint Implementation" initiatives, under which developed nations would earn credits for helping developing nations to implement emissions reduction measures.

Although it will not earn any credit for Japan, Tuesday's agreement on AIJ is welcome, because it comes just before the third round of the U.N. conference in Kyoto, the ministry official said.

At the Kyoto meeting set to begin next Monday, developing nations' participation in tackling global warming is one of the focal points, and nearly 170 member states are expected to ponder the possibility of introducing Joint Implementation initiatives.