General Director of the Vietnam Meteorological and Hydrological Administration Tran Hong Thai speaks at the conference in Hanoi on September 18 (Photo: dangcongsan.vn)Hanoi (VNA) – Hydrometeorology is a borderless issue, so to minimise naturaldisaster-related losses and risks, close cooperation among countries around theworld is needed, head of the Vietnamese hydro-meteorological administration hassaid.
At a conference in Hanoi on September 18,General Director of the Vietnam Meteorological and Hydrological AdministrationTran Hong Thai said over the last five years, cooperation between hisadministration and development partners has been growing, generating positiveoutcomes.
He underlined the need to enhancehydro-meteorological cooperation among countries around the world throughbuilding capacity, transferring technology, and sharing forecasts, statisticsand climate change knowledge.
Expanding cooperation in hydrometeorology isessential for development, Thai said.
Vietnamese DeputyMinister of Natural Resources and Environment Le Cong Thanh said one of thebiggest challenges to Vietnam’s hydro-meteorological sector is climate change.Therefore, it is necessary to build a concrete development strategy for ituntil 2030, with a vision to 2050.
Besides, development partners’ role in itstargets and development strategies need to maximise resources and preventwastefulness. It is also important for the sector to have open dialogues with Stateagencies, private companies that use hydro-meteorological services anddevelopment partners to enhance private parties’ engagement in this field.
He also highlighted the necessity to utilisebilateral and multilateral relations to modernise the country’shydro-meteorological sector.
According to Thai, under the sector’sdevelopment strategy until 2020, a system with 10 modern radars and a lightningdetection network with 18 stations nationwide have been installed. Dataintegration and supercomputer systems are also hoped to become operationalsoon.
However, the sector still needs more investmentfor the next 10-20 years to meet requirements relevant to disaster preventionand mitigation, socio-economic development, defence-security ensuring,reasonable natural resource exploitation and environmental protection.
The conference was attended by representativesof the World Bank, the Italian and Finnish embassies, development partners, anddomestic and foreign private companies. They learned about the Vietnamesesector’s development demand for 2020-2030 and pinpointed potential sponsors tohelp the sector realise its goals./.
VNA
