SINGAPORE - An annual environment conference that has been held in the Republic for the past three years will take place in Belgium next year.

This was formalised on Thursday morning, when organiser National Environment Agency (NEA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Public Waste Agency of Flanders at the Shangri-La Hotel.

Under the agreement, the NEA will jointly organise the annual Clean Environment Regulators Roundtable (CERR) in Antwerp, Belgium next year.

It will be held from Sept 7 to 9 in 2015, in conjunction with the International Solid Waste Association's World Congress - an event that centers around discussions on waste management.

The CERR, which first started in 2012, is a forum that allows environment regulators to share knowledge on green issues such as waste management, air and water pollution through the discussion of case studies.

During this year's CERR, case studies on air quality, environmental planning, river cleaning and waste management systems were shared.

Ms Grace Fu, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office and Second Minister for the Environment and Water Resources and Foreign Affairs, who was present at the event, said: "I believe the waste challenges faced by Singapore are similarly faced by Belgium. I am told that Belgium has successfully discouraged landfill and incineration in favour of waste prevention, reuse, recycle and composting.

"I see that we can learn much from Belgium and there is certainly scope for cooperation between Belgium and Singapore corporations, research institutes and government agencies."