The Finnish Meteorological Institute and the National Environmental Agency of Georgia signed the Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the meteorology, climatology, and environmental fields in Helsinki, Finland.

The Minister of Environmental Protection and Agriculture attended the event. As part of his working visit, Otar Shamugia met with the Director General of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, Petteri Taalas.

In his remarks, the Minister emphasized the significance of the Memorandum signed between the National Environmental Agency of Georgia and the Finnish Meteorological Institute and stressed the need for strengthening bilateral collaboration to mitigate the effects of climate change.

“With your involvement, the MoU will enable us to modernize meteorological and environmental observation networks, update relevant equipment and laboratories, develop weather, climate, and air quality modeling and forecasting systems, modernize the early warning service delivery platform, create new services and products that will benefit the population and interested users and improve research methods and tools related to climate change. We are expanding the hydrometeorological observation network and adopting modern information-telecommunication and forecasting systems. 231 hydrometeorological stations have already been installed across the country, which will significantly improve the quality of weather forecasting and increase the effectiveness of early warning about anticipated natural hazards”, - said Otar Shamugia.

According to Petteri Taalas, the improvement of international meteorological systems is a prerequisite for economic development in the country; he also mentioned that it is crucial and commendable that the Government of Georgia is investing in this area: “It is essential that Georgia carries out reforms in line with the standards of EU member states. We will continue to cooperate and share our knowledge with Georgian experts”.