Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Swedesurvey has been awarded a contract by the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) in Abuja, Nigeria for a project for the Establishment of a Digital Base Map covering the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nigeria. At the beginning of November 4 staff members travelled to Sweden on a study visit. The purpose of the visit was to review the project and plan for coming activities as well as to familiarize themselves with the products and services provided by Lantmäteriet.

The current system of land administration in India is fraught with many shortcomings. To address this problem of the land records a novel project called Bhu Bharati has been contemplated in the State of Andhra Pradesh. Key features of the project are Conclusive Titles, Title Registration, Integration of services and the creation of a single and dedicated Agency, Self-sustaining Revenue model, e-conveyances, etc.

Sri Dharmana Prasada Rao, the Honourable Minister for Revenue in the Government of Andhra Pradesh, and responsible for this project, visited Swedesurvey October 22 – 23 together with four highly ranked officers including the Project Director, Sri Kaveti Vijayanand. The purpose of the visit was to study Swedish land administration and discuss possible future cooperation.

The delegation was very satisfied with the visit. The demands on the Swedish system and the new system in Andhra Pradesh are the same and the overall design of the systems is similar in many ways. The delegation expressed great interest in future cooperation with Swedesurvey.

A delegation from the Guanggzhou Municipality Land Resources and Housing Administration visited Gävle 18-19 October, 2007.

Guangzhou is the capital and the sub-provincial city of Guangdong Province in the southern part of the Peoples Republic of China. The city is also known in English as Canton. It is a port on the Pearl River, navigable to the South China Sea and located about 120 km northwest of Hong Kong. The population is roughly estimated at 10 million, which makes it the fourth largest city in China.

The participants arrived in Gävle after a visit to the Municipality of Norrköping. After their stay in Gävle, they will travel to Trollhättan to visit the City Planning Department before returning to China. Swedesurvey hosted the intensive two-day visit to Gävle, which included presentations and demonstrations of the mapping production lines at Lantmäteriet, the National Land Survey of Sweden. The participants were very interested in our ability to create and implement geodetic reference networks, our orthophoto production, digital map production and the small scale map products. Presentations included one on cadastral procedures in Sweden, resulting in a lot of interesting discussions because the concept of what we in Sweden call “real property” doesn’t exist in China. However, Mr. Carl-Erik Sölscher of the Cadastral Services Division was able clarify this.

The visitors were very pleased and satisfied with the visit and expressed their interest in future cooperation.