China,UN cooperate in geological information development

The Chinese government and the United Nations (UN) on Monday signed an agreement to jointly promote geological information management.

The agreement, known as the cooperation on geospatial information management capacity development, means the Chinese government will invest 4 million U.S. dollars in a UN trust fund.

The money will be used in projects to strengthen China and other developing countries' capacities of geospatial information production, management and distribution.

The program will also lead to the improvement of geological information development levels in the Asia-Pacific region, according to China's National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation (NASMG).

The five-year program, to be carried out from 2013 to 2017, will be conducted in workshops, short-term consultations, medium-term training as well as visits and exchanges, the administration said.

The program will cover knowledge transfer and capacity building in order to obtain, provide and share information in a more efficient way. It will help to make such information available for disaster prevention and reduction efforts, the NASMG said.

Xu Deming, the NASMG director, and Wu Hongbo, the UN under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs, signed the agreement.

The administration said the agreement will open a new stage for the cooperation between China and the UN in geospatial information fields.