Opening Address
Opening address by Mr. Yoshiaki Yano,
Director General, Geographical Survey Institute, Japan
Thank you for your kind introduction. I am Yoshiaki Yano, Director
General Geographical Survey Institute. First of all I would like to
express our gratitude to all of you for taking time and effort to attend
this seminar on Spatial Data Infrastructure in Asia and the Pacific
organized by the Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure for Asia
and the Pacific. It is with great pleasure to say a few words at this
opening on behalf of the organizer.
During the last few years spatial data infrastructure has played an
increasingly important role as an information base to support the
highly information-centered society. As you know very well, spatial
data infrastructure is the basic map data of topography, transportation
network, administrative boundaries, and etc, which is essential to GIS
development.
It was at the time of Hyogo-ken Nanbu Earthquake back in 1995 that
spatial data infrastructure came to public attention for the first time in
Japan. The earthquake that devastated the Kobe area claimed the lives
of 6,400 people with an unprecedented total loss of ten trillion
Japanese yen. In the course of recovery and reconstruction efforts
geographic information system proved to be most powerful and
efficient, which eventually led to a concept of spatial data
infrastructure as an overall system to manage the data. As its
importance and necessity grew, it has successfully established itself
as a major strategic tool for "E-Japan" policy, promoted by the
Japanese government to cope with the increasingly IT- oriented
society. Under this policy the focus is on the spatial data infrastructure
development as well as the digitization of geographic information and
its provision, for which vigorous and concentrated efforts are presently
underway at Geographical Survey Institute as its major responsible
organization.
On the wider horizon of Asia and the Pacific region 1995 is also the
year to be earmarked in the field of spatial data infrastructure. It was in
1995 that Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure for Asia and the
Pacific(PCGIAP) was established based on the United Nations
recommendation with a wide participation of national mapping
organizations, launching the spatial data infrastructure development
efforts at regional level.
We are very pleased that a seminar on Spatial Data Infrastructure in
Asia and the Pacific has been appropriately planned concurrently with
the 7th PCGIAP meeting scheduled from April 24 to 27.
As the program indicates in the morning presentations from PCGIAP
member nations are to be made introducing the current status of
spatial data infrastructure development and later in the afternoon
focusing on the infrastructure development beyond national
boundaries Professor Yang Kai, President of PCGIAP and Mr. Santiago
Borreo-Mutis, Chair of PC IDEA, an equivalent to PCGIAP for the
American region, are giving us overviews of their activities.
We will be most delighted if this seminar be the occasion for all of you
to gain further insight into and better understanding of the
infrastructure development in Asia and the Pacific region. I do hope
you will make yourself comfortable as much as possible and make the
most of your time here. After the seminar you are also invited to join us
in a technical visit to Geographical Survey Institute and a gala dinner
to complete the day.
Finally let me wish a success of the seminar and a successful day to
all of you.
Thank you for your attention.