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A recent meeting of Working Group 3 of the United Nations Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure in the Asia Pacific has decided to create an annual land administration forum for the region.

The decision was a response to a growing feeling that concentrating on SDIs by themselves leaves important issues on the sidelines, such as land administration. It was reached at the last meeting of WG3, held 19-22 August in Kuala Lumpur. PCGIAP is an organisation for sharing knowledge about the design and construction of spatial data infrastructures.

At the seminar, WG3 chair, Professor Ian Williamson of Melbourne University, argued passionately for the inclusion of land administration in PCGIAP deliberations.

He said countries that failed to get land adminstration right faced a bleak future. He noted that the US – the world's largest and most prosperous economy – was currently threatened with a major recession because of a failure in its land market. He blamed this, in part, on poor land information.

The meeting was sponsored by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the Malaysian Government, the International Federation of Surveyors, the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association and the Centre for SDIs and Land Administration at the University of Melbourne.

Over 150 people from 30 countries and five international organisations attended.

ASM Newsletter is distributed by e-mail every two weeks. It reports on events in the spatial industry in Asia and events outside the region which will impact on Asia.