On May 30 the local time, Dr. CHEN Zhenlin, Administrator of China Meteorological Administration (CMA), led a delegation to visit the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) in Darmstadt, Germany, and met with Mr. Philip Evans, Director-General of EUMETSAT, to reinforce bilateral exchanges and advance China-Europe meteorological satellite collaboration to a new level.

Group photo Credits to Department of International Cooperation of CMA

Dr. CHEN Zhenlin expressed that for over 20 years, the two sides have conducted in-depth cooperation by technical workshops, bilateral meetings and high-level exchanges. Such win-win cooperation not only realized complementary observations for both, but also improved efficiency of meteorological satellite applications, benefiting global users and international community. He extend sincere congratulations for the successful launch of Meteosat Third Generation Imager (MTG-I 1) last December and introduced the polar-orbiting precipitation monitoring satellite FY-3G launched by China last month. He hoped both sides would deepen cooperation in areas such as satellite application, space weather and data sharing in the future, consolidate coordination under multilateral frameworks such as Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites (CGMS), leverage the advantages of meteorological satellites, and jointly support Early Warnings for All Initiative of the United Nations.

Mr. Philip Evans spoke highly of the development of China's meteorological cause, especially the achievements made by FY meteorological satellites. He said that the cooperation between CMA and EUMETSAT has achieved fruitful results for many years. With the continuous emergence of new technologies, he hoped the two sides would further expand cooperation areas in the future, especially under the framework of CGMS, deepen cooperation in key areas such as new-generation meteorological satellite technology, data sharing and distribution, and actively support the implementation of Early Warnings for All Initiative of UN.

During the meeting, both sides respectively introduced the development of China's FY meteorological satellites and the European meteorological satellites, engaged in-depth discussions on future cooperation areas, and consulted on new-round bilateral cooperative agreement and reached preliminary consensus. The Chinese delegation also visited EUMETSAT control centre and technical infrastructure building.

CMA and EUMETSAT signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of meteorological satellites and satellite meteorology in 1998. Since then, bilateral cooperation and exchanges have been constantly deepened, gradually expanding from data and product exchanges to satellite planning and coordination, satellite data application, technical and scientific research cooperation and others, becoming a paradigm of the meteorological cooperation between China and Europe.

Editor: Liu Shuqiao