The nation’s weather forecast system will be modernized with the help of Japan starting next year, it was announced Friday.
Experts will arrive from Tokyo in February and stay for three years, according to an agreement signed Friday by Hiroshi Nirasawa, leader of a Japanese study team that assessed Cambodia’s current forecast system, and Ky Heang, secretary of state for the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology.
A meteorologist and an agro-meteorologist will work fulltime at the ministry. It is expected to help farmers prepare for natural disasters and to take necessary preventive measures for their agricultural products, according to a statement from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
Japan will also provide several short-term consultants to the ministry, while sending Cambodians to train in Japan, according to the aid agency’s statement.
Cambodia’s meteorology activities were abandoned during the Pol Pot regime, the qualified meteorological staff reduced from 300 to 10 and the country’s meteorological networks destroyed.
