Asian Association on Remote Sensing (AARS)

The General Conference was held on 20 and 21 October 1997 in Kuala Lumpur during the 18th ACRS. Mr. Nik Nasruddin Mahmood, Director , Malaysian Centre for Remote Sensing presided.

Two membership applications from Republic of Uzbekistan and Brunei Dar-
ussalam were considered . The membership of Brunei was approved. However, the membership of Uzbekistan would wait till further information to be requested by the General Secretary is received .

Professor Murai spoke on the publication of the Memorial Book. He requested the country delegates to provide reports, photos etc. relating to the conferences held in their countries. Delegates suggested a number of possible additions to the Memorial Book.

Dr. Honda spoke on the proposal AIT-AARS ACRoRS (Asian Center for Research on Remote Sensing). He felt that endorsement by AARS would assist in obtaining more support from countries of the region. Professor Murai indicated that NASDA and NRCT had agreed to provide Japanese satellite data at marginal cost to researchers from AARS member countries. He informed that the Center would be officially opened on the 19th December, 1997. The General Conference endorsed the proposal.

It was proposed and accepted that Australia and New Zealand both remain as individual country members, but that the representative organization for both will be the Australasian Association Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry.
The Malaysian Remote Sensing Society was admitted as an Associate Member. MACRES is already the country representative for Malaysia.
It was confirmed that China Taipei be accepted as an ordinary member, subject to the change in their title to "Chinese Taipei Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing". Delegates form both China and China Taipei spoke of their acceptance of the confirmation.
Professor Chen, the delegate for China Taipei, spoke of their support for ACRoRS. He proposed that China Taipei wished to support a complementary activity whereby scientist from the region could obtain data from their ground receiving station and research assistance through working with Prof. Chen and his research group.
Professor Murai advised the meeting that he had accepted a Sustaining Member Application from ltres Research Limited of Canada, which had been proposed by Dr. Ryerson