Int'l Cooperation Welcomed in Mapping EffortsChina will intensify international cooperation to expedite progress in surveying and mapping large tracts of the country and further open up the market as well.The cooperation can be performed excluding some sensitive geographic information that must be kept secret for national interests, Tuesday's China Daily quoted Chen Bangzhu, director- general of the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, as saying. Chen made a speech at the opening ceremony of the 20th International Cartography Conference Monday in Beijing, saying that China has signed bilateral treaties on surveying and mapping with more than 20 countries and established business cooperation with some 50 nations. The five-day conference, under the theme of "Mapping the 21st Century", "will play an important role in promoting international collaboration and exchanges in the field of surveying and mapping", said Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao. China is now one of the countries with the most advanced surveying and mapping technologies, said Chen, and China welcomes more foreign scientists to take part in programs in the fields of engineering, surveying and mapping in the country, according to China Daily. China has finished a high accuracy national Global Positioning System (GPS) network and established all the databases of geographic information of 1:250,000 successfully. It is currently working on the national database of 1:10,000 which is the most advanced in the world, the newspaper reports. It will also introduce more foreign partners in surveying natural disaster sites and other fields, where it feels it is lagging behind global standards. It is also revealed at the meeting that China is striving hard to develop a comprehensive geographic program called "Digital China" to digitize all the geographic information of the country, and many foreign facilities and technologies are needed during the program, said Chen. |
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