North China's Shanxi province reached an agreement with the National Natural Science Foundation of China to jointly establish a coal-based low carbon fund on April 9 in Taiyuan.

The joint fund aims to support scientific and innovative projects surrounding coal-based low carbon fields, including coal mining, coalbed gas, coal chemicals, coal equipment, new materials, coal electricity, new energy and energy conservation. It will not focus on Shanxi province only, but also target areas similar to Shanxi.

According to the agreement, the Shanxi government and the foundation will allocate a total of 50 million yuan ($8.05 million) to this fund every year from 2015 to 2019 to promote the development of coal-based fields.

Li Xiaopeng, governor of Shanxi province, presented the agreement signing ceremony. He encouraged the fund's two parties to strengthen cooperation and develop Shanxi into an international R&D center on low-carbon technologies.