Seoul City and Beijing vowed to strengthen cooperation to combat environment challenges, especially air pollution, as part of their efforts to protect public health, officials said Wednesday.

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and his counterpart Wang Anshun agreed to launch a joint environment team that will share their environment measures, technology and information in a bid to improve air quality.

“The two cities are a ‘communal breathing community.’ The cooperative study on air pollution based on the excellent technology of the private sector will bring synergies and lead to better environment technology development,” Park said in his congratulatory speech at a forum on “Seoul-Beijing air quality improvement” held in Beijing.

The joint environment team will be part of the “integrated committee” of the two capital cities. Since 2013, the two cities have run the committee to mark the 20th anniversary of sisterhood and boost cooperation in various fields.

As of now, the committee has been active in three fields -- economy, culture and education.

Park left for China on Sunday on a four-day trip to participate in a meeting of international policy advisory body “21st Century Council” led by Berggruen Institute. Launched in September 2010, the agency aims at providing suggestions on various global challenges for G20 countries.

By Lee Hyun-jeong (rene@heraldcorp.com)