Feng Zengkun Straits Times 28 Jul 13;
Singapore will share its new haze monitoring system with Malaysia and Indonesia for their experts to review and for feedback as part of a trial.
The move is aimed at helping all three countries decide on how best to use the system as part of a joint effort to identify and punish those responsible for the haze. But this only if the governments agree to share digitised land-use and concession maps.
The trial was agreed upon when the three countries met in Jakarta last Friday, ahead of the Asean Summit in Brunei in October.
The session was the first trilateral meeting between senior officials from the three countries on the haze, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) yesterday in a statement.
The Singapore delegation, which includes officials from the MFA, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, National Environment Agency and the Attorney-General's Chambers, was led by Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, Mr Chee Wee Kiong.
At the meeting, Mr Chee renewed Singapore's offer to help Indonesia put out its fires, including an aircraft for cloud-seeding operations to artificially create rain.
He also provided high-resolution satellite pictures of the hot spots there.
Indonesia, on its part, said it was willing to share meteorological data through the World Meteorological Organisation, as well as data on air quality with the Asean Sub-Committee on Meteorological and Geophysics and the Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre.
Senior officials from all three countries also agreed to update their foreign ministers on their discussion at the sidelines of the Asean Foreign Ministers' Retreat in Thailand next month.
Separately, Second Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Grace Fu said yesterday that the haze was unlikely to return to Singapore in the next few days.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a community event in Jurong, Ms Fu noted that Singapore has been helped by favourable wind directions and recent rain in Indonesia, where raging fires caused record levels of pollution here last month.
The number of hot spots in Sumatra, for example, rose to more than 250 at the start of last week but has fallen to fewer than 25 in the past few days.
