PRESIDENT'S CLOSING ADDRESS

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Closing Address

by Dato' Abdul Majid Bin Mohamed

President of the Executive Board

Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific

Mr Brendan Godfrey, Chairman, Australian Organising Committee and Deputy Secretary, Business Development, Dept of Administrative Services, Government of Australia, distinguished delegates, Observers and Advisers,

As we are now in the closing minutes of our meeting, it would be appropriate for me, as your President, to dwell a little on the progress of our work and our workplan for the future. At the first plenary session of this Committee the Draft Statutes and Rules of Procedure have been approved, and as you have already heard from the reports of the four Working Groups, substantial progress has been achieved in the following areas:

Geographical Information Infrastructure and Institutional Framework

Issues relating to Cadastral Infrastructure

Regional Geodetic Networks

Legislation and administrative arrangements for the acquisition and sharing of spatial data

That such a progress has been achieved in the short duration of time would not have been possible without the willingness of members, observers and advisers to contribute, share experiences and draw upon their vast experience and expertise. For this, I would like to congratulate and thank the various Chairpersons, Secretaries and members of the four Working Groups. The work of the Working Groups, however is far from complete and the various Resolutions and Work Plans that have been agreed upon by all of us here would provide the continuity of our work between Meetings of the Permanent Committee. Therefore the Working Groups would continue its work and as outlined in the various Work Plans of the Working Groups, questionnaires of a fact-finding nature would be sent out to all of you. It would be necessary, however, for the Secretariat of this Committee to vet through these questionnaires to avoid duplicity, minimise redundancy and be less taxing on their recipients. Once again I seek your cooperation in giving not only positive responses to the questionnaire which would be sent out to you as soon as it is possible to do so by the Secretary, but also to do it promptly as we have a rather tight schedule to meet before our next meeting, which would be held in conjunction with the 14th UN Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Pacific, in mid February 1997 at Bangkok, Thailand. With your cooperation, I am sure we would be able to achieve the various milestones that we have set for ourselves and present a very good report not only to our next meeting, but also to the 14th UNRCC as to the substantive progress made in the implementation of Resolution 16 of the 13th UNRCC which was instrumental in the creation of the Permanent Committee.

At the invitation of our host, AUSLIG, which is Australia's national surveying and mapping agency and also responsible for developing Australia's National Spatial Data Infrastructure, we have travelled from various parts of the world to be here for this important meeting. I am sure all of you would agree with me that since our arrival in this beautiful city of Sydney, we are overwhelmed by the warm hospitality and tremendous efficiency with which our host have organised this meeting. I ask you now to please join me in showing our appreciation to the Organising Committee from AUSLIG, especially to Mr Brendan Godfrey, the various sponsoring organisations and the Government of Australia in not only being the splendid hosts that they are, but also in ensuring the success of this meeting.

I would also like to thank each and everyone of you for your participation and contribution to this important meeting and I look forward to your continuing support to the work of this Permanent Committee which, in creating a regional geographic information infrastructure, would also contribute to a broader regional cooperation and understanding.

Thank you