High-level geographical info forum held in Beijing

The third High Level Forum on United Nations Global Information Management (UN-GGIM) opened Wednesday in Beijing, gathering authorities from nearly 20 countries to discuss geo-information's role in promoting sustainable development.

The three-day forum will address geospatial information in the post-2015 development agenda.

Discussions will center around critical development issues such as mitigating climate change, disasters, sustainable cities, human settlement and cross-border cooperation.

The forum is co-sponsored by UN-GGIM and China's National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation (NASG).

The NASG said it will sign documents with geo-info authorities from countries including Mexico, the Republic of Korea, Israel, Mongolia and Sweden during the forum, in a bid to strengthen cooperation in China's Beidou navigation system development, monitoring of geographical conditions, building a geo-info database and digital cities.

A Beijing Declaration will be issued after the forum, according to the NASG.