7th South East Asian Survey Congress SEASC –
Vice President Andreas Drees visits Hong Kong, SAR China

“How can we measure up” more than 250 surveyors from 25 countries asked themselves gathering in Hong Kong at the 7th South East Asian Survey Congress under the motto “From Compass and Pacing to Cyberspacing”. About 80 presentations covered a wide range of topics not only in technical fields. A remarkable exhibition supplemented the congress program.

It was an impressive and successful event, showing that the host FIG member HKIS is well prepared to organise the FIG Working Week 2007. FIG Vice President and former president of HKIS TN Wong headed the local organising committee of SEASC as chairman. He and his colleagues invited Deputy President Andreas Drees to the head office of HKIS and gave an introduction to the situation of surveyors in Hong Kong.

SEASC was up to now organised as a four years event. It was decided to hold it in future in two years term. Next time it will take place in the capital of Brunei/Darussalam Bandar Seri Begawan. The 9th SEASC in 2007 will be in Christchurch, New Zealand. All events are under the patronage of ASEAN FLAG, the ASEAN Federation of Land Surveying and Geomatics, a loose combine of South East Asian surveyors – up to now without formal statutes.

FIG was represented in Hong Kong very well, having Vice Presidents TN Wong and Andreas Drees, Commission Chairs Adam Greenland, Matt Higgins and Stephen Yip and FIG Honorary President Earl James on board. Deputy President Andreas Drees gave a keynote presentation in the opening ceremony about “Shaping the Change – FIG Policy for the Challenges of Today’s World” and chaired a technical session. All other FIG officers gave input to this event as well in various plenaries and sessions they chaired or contributed with personal presentations. Besides that several meetings on FIG matters were held with the topics of FIG membership of HKIES and the FIG Good Practice Report.

A side visit in Shenzhen to the 10th anniversary of Real Estate Appraisal in China gave Andreas Drees and Stephen Yip the opportunity to encourage the highly relevant organisation of Chinese Institute of Real Estate Appraisers (CIREA) with more than 20,000 members to join FIG. Stephen Yip from Hong Kong as Chair of FIG Commission 9 is an excellent bridge between the two organisations.

Conversations with many delegates showed that there is great interest in closer contact between the regional member organisation and FIG Council and commissions. The regional conferences therefore seem to be a good tool to increase participation.