The 9th Tripartite Health Ministers meeting was held in Busan, Korea on December 4. Li Bin, minister of China's National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), Yasuhisa Shiozaki, Japan's health minister and Chung Chin-Youb, Korea's health and welfare minister led the meeting.

The meeting reviewed the achievements of Chinese-Japanese-Korean health cooperation mechanism in the past decade and shared the experiences of each nation in health-emergency response, contagious and chronic disease prevention and control, population aging and universal health insurance. The meeting highly praised China's contribution to the 9th Global Conference on Health Promotion. 

The three sides reached a consensus on strengthening co-operation in the areas of healthy aging, chronic disease prevention and control and national health strategies. A joint communiqué on the meeting was released by the three parties. 

During the meeting, the three ministers, alongside 50 representatives from health departments of the three countries and World Health Organization (WHO), renewed the Memorandum of Understanding on co-operation in coping with influenza and infectious diseases – also known as the Joint Action Plan.  

Prior to this meeting, Li held meetings with Japanese and Korean health ministers and the director of WHO's West Pacific Region on December 13. 

The tripartite health co-operation mechanism was established in 2006. During the past decade, it has developed into a co-operative system supported by multi-faceted policies and technological exchanges, and it yearly organizes a Tripartite Health Ministers meeting. 

Korea was the host of the initiative this year. Next year, the meeting will be held in Beijing.