Viet Nam - Finland: Promoting cooperation in hydrometeorology and environment

Attending the event were Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Le Cong Thanh, Finnish Ambassador to Viet Nam Keijo Norvanto, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Hydrometeorology Hoang Duc Cuong, and representatives of units under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment; representatives of the Finnish Meteorological Service, the Lao Meteorological Service, and experts in the fields of hydrometeorology and environment from Viet Nam and Finland.

Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Minister Le Cong Thanh shared: In recent years, implementing the policies of the Party and the Government, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has always strongly deployed solutions to improve the effectiveness of early warning, including comprehensive modernization of the hydrometeorology sector from monitoring, warning, forecasting, and information transmission.

According to Mr. Keijo Norvanto, Ambassador of Finland to Viet Nam, since 2018, the relationship between Finland and Viet Nam has shifted from aid to trade and mutually beneficial cooperation, including many activities of knowledge exchange, scientific research, technology transfer, and capacity building training. The two current cooperation projects in the field of hydrometeorology and environment will certainly contribute much to exploiting the potential of two-way trade in the coming time.

The Finnish Ambassador also emphasized that to ensure sustainable development, the industrialization and modernization process needs to go hand in hand with environmental protection, thereby minimizing the impact of climate change. This is very beneficial for Vietnam in the context of the international community paying more and more attention to efforts to respond to climate change.

At the meeting, representatives of the Finnish Meteorological Agency and the General Department of Hydrometeorology shared the results achieved between the hydrometeorology and environment sectors of the two countries through the two projects Promoserv 3 and PromoAir.

Within the framework of the projects, representatives of the two agencies also presented the main results related to the Smartmet system in analyzing and forecasting daily weather and hazardous weather; research results on thunderstorm characteristics in Viet Nam; application of the SILAM model for developing air quality forecasting and warning systems in Viet Nam. In addition, the meeting also introduced private sector solutions on weather, air quality and future cooperation, solutions to promote gender equality in the cooperation process between Viet Nam and Finland... Experts and managers discussed and contributed ideas to increase the reliability of hydrometeorological and environmental forecasting and warning products, meeting the needs of people and society.