The SAWS has signed an agreement to cooperate with the Chinese Meteorological Administration (CMA), for five years.
The two will work together in meteorology including weather forecasting and early warning systems, to enhance and protect life and property against hazardous weather events.
This follows the signing of a Programme of Action (PoA) on Thursday, 5 December 2024 by the SAWS Chief Executive Officer, Ishaam Abader, and his Chinese counterpart, Dr Chen Zhenlin.
In terms of the PoA, the two organisations will carry out 29 cooperative activities in 13 areas of their work between 2025 and 2029.
Dr Zhenlin led a six-member delegation on an official visit to the SAWS head office in Centurion.
During the engagement, the two organisations sought to promote an exchange between China and South Africa on meteorological development strategies and concepts as well as to investigate the meteorological service and cooperation needs in South Africa.
Speaking about the agreement, Dr Zhenlin said “we have a long standing and mutually beneficial relationship with the CMA, as with other Met Offices internationally. We have signed an MoU at COP 28, and in our interaction yesterday, we have further refined and operationalised the umbrella agreement.”
He also said teams are working towards more concrete plans to aid the collaboration.
The Chinese delegation later toured the Irene Weather Office to have sight of some of the SAWS’ world-class observational infrastructure including the weather RADAR, automatic weather stations, automatic rainfall stations, Upper-Air Soundings System and the Lightning Detection Sensors.