The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs of the Republic of Korea (Minister: H.E. Mr. Kwon, Do-Youp) announced that it will send a consultation delegation to Abu Dhabi on December 8, 2012, to strengthen the two sides' mutual cooperation on geospatial information technology.

The delegation is headed by H.E. Mr. Park, Sang-Woo, Deputy Minister for Housing and Land of the MLTM, and will consist of experts from the industrial, academic, and research fields, totaling 10 people.

During their stay in Abu Dhabi (December 8-12. 2012), the delegation members will support bidding activities of the Korean geospatial information companies there and will provide technical consultation to the Department of Municipal Affairs of Abu Dhabi while signing an MOU on geospatial information cooperation.

※ DMA (Department of Municipal Affairs): it is an organization that is a regional administrative entity tasked with administering the western regions, including Al Ain, and also is managing infrastructure and assets in the region.

The Abu Dhabi government visited Korea twice in 2012 first in September and then in October and took part in geospatial information knowledge tour programs and the Smart Geospatial Expo 2012, through which it gained firsthand knowledge about Korea's cutting-edge IT and its convergence with geospatial information by visiting relevant sites in Korea, and subsequently asked the Korean government to send its delegation for technical consultations and suggested signing of an MOU for that.

※ The Smart Geospatial Expo: participated by 50,000 attendees from home and broad, it displayed state-of-the-art Korean geospatial information technologies and held academic conferences at a level biggest in Asia of its kind (October 10-12, 2012, Coex, Seoul).

During its visits to Korea, the Abu Dhabi delegation showed great interest in the digitization technology of underground facilities, and the Korea Land Information System (KLIS), and in particular, it focused heavily on monitoring the current status of Korean system operations and the cutting-edge geospatial information technology in Korea.

The Korean delegation sent this time will meet with key officials of the Abu Dhabi government to introduce Korean information technologies that are cited to be one of the best in the world and will ask for help in letting Korean companies participate in the USD 40 million e-NOC project (land information digitization system establishment project).

※ Early this year, the Abu Dhabi government had selected a preliminary project operator for its e-NOC but since finding that Korea's technology fits well with the conditions of Abu Dhabi, it ceased its previous project and started contacting Korean companies.

By recognizing the technology level of the Abu Dhabi government's geospatial information, the Korean government will explore possible agendas to provide more assistance and in the years ahead it will set a direction for the two sides' technical cooperation.

Meanwhile, the delegation will also disseminate relevant information and requests floated by the local Korean companies about their difficulties and suggestions so that these could be incorporated into government policies while encouraging the executives and employees of those companies by holding a meeting with the companies operating there.

H.E. Mr. Park, Sang-Woo, Deputy Minister for Housing and Land of the MLTM, stated that based on the accumulated geospatial information technology experience of Korea, in order to help Korean enterprises make inroads into the overseas geospatial information markets, Korea will strengthen its inter-governmental relations and will boost the exchange of human resources as part of the government's direct and indirect measures of support, and also by capitalizing on the opportunities offered by participating in the Abu Dhabi geospatial information market this time, the Korean government plans to actively pursue other regions such as the Middle East and Latin America where the capital is abundant, which is a move away from its previous strategy of focusing on small-scale geospatial information markets of developing countries.