RIYADH: Saudi Arabia and Finland have signed an agreement to bolster air services between both countries in a bid to improve trade. The Kingdom’s General Authority of Civil Aviation and Finland’s Ministry of Transport and Communications have signed a memorandum of understanding to monitor air transport, Saudi Press Agency reported. The MoU aims to further boost Saudi-Finnish economic partnerships, with the GACA, along with a total of 12 government agencies and 27 firms, already participating in cross-country business. The agreement tackles air transport-related organizational clauses, the designation of national carriers, defining the regular number of flights between both countries, and the commercial representation of airlines. The MoU also paves the way for regulatory framework cooperation and safe and secure air transport between the two sides. Through this agreement, GACA seeks to achieve some of the objectives in the National Transport and Logistics Strategy to enhance the competitiveness of the sector and to contribute to the transformation of the Kingdom into a global logistics hub for Asia, Africa, and Europe. Objectives in the National Transport and Logistics Strategy include transporting up to 330 million passengers by 2030. Earlier in 2022, GACA signed a similar MoU with Poland to regulate the operational framework of air transport between the two countries. Both MoUs are in accordance with Saudi civil aviation sector strategy, which aims to elevate the number of local and international flights to over 250 destinations and to attract many international lines to use the Kingdom’s airports. Saudi aviation figures tend to exceed those of Finland, with the number of passengers carried by Saudi aviation in 2020 standing at 26.9 million, compared to 3.5 million for Finland, according to latest data from the World Bank. In addition to this, Saudi"s air passenger numbers surged 30 percent to reach 49 million passengers in 2021 compared to the previous year according to CAPA Center for Aviation.