Myanmar will introduce an extra high-speed global telecommunication system (GTS) in international weather forecast data exchange by the end of this year, a local weekly journal reported Friday.

With a capacity of exchange of up to 30,000 words per second which is 600 times faster, the GTS will replace the current system which can exchange only 50 words per second, the Khit Myanmar said.

The project is being assisted by the World Meteorology Organization and the assistance stands the biggest in 20 years, the Myanmar Meteorology and Hydrology Department (MHD) was quoted as saying.

According to the MHD, a company from South Africa has won the tender for providing services in upgrading Myanmar’s weather forecast services and an expert from the company will be dispatched for the purpose in November.

Once the data exchange speed is raised, Myanmar’s lowest status in world’s weather forecast data exchange will pick up to the international level, an official of the MHD said.

Meanwhile, Myanmar is installing a national tsunami monitoring system in the country’s western coastal region with the help of international organizations to receive flash data from the regional system installed in the Indian Ocean.

Under the arrangement of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Government Ocenal Graphic Commission (IOC), the tsunami wave build-up national monitoring sys-tem is to be installed in Sittway or Kyaikhami in the coastal Rakhine state which lies near the Indian Ocean.

Tsunami data from the regional early warning center already set up in the Indian Ocean will be received by Myanmar’s early warning center through the GTS.

In early 2005, in a bid to strengthen its tsunami warning system, Myanmar also set up a national committee for natural disaster prevention and resettlement that involves many ministries.