The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) will be jointly organizing an international conference on Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS), known as International ECDIS Conference. The theme of the Conference is "ECDIS – An Effective Tool for Safe Navigation".

The Conference is sponsored by the International Hydrographic Organization and will be held at The Pan Pacific Hotel, Singapore from 26 to 28 Oct 98. ECDIS is a new navigational tool that can be interfaced with the Differential Global Positioning System to provide vessels with real time and highly accurate positions in relation to charted features. In addition, the use of ECDIS with official digital data will be able to provide warnings on grounding and collision, routes planning and monitoring functions. The objective of the Conference is to promote the use of ECDIS and official digital data for safe navigation.

At the Conference, speakers from the International Maritime Organization, International Hydrographic Organization, Northern Europe Electronic Chart Commission and United Kingdom Hydrographic Office will offer expertise, views and share experiences on the development and applications of ECDIS. There will also be presentations from several shipping companies who are participating in UKHO and MPA sea demonstrations using a hybrid ECDIS, with both official Electronic Navigation Chart and Raster charts, to navigate between the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong. Other speakers will come from international shipping lines, port authorities, ECDIS companies, hydrographic offices, academic institutions and charting agencies of countries such as Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Singapore, United Kingdom and USA.

The topics covered by the speakers are:

ECDIS – an efficient tool for navigational safety and business
Official world-wide digital data for global shipping
Maritime digital chart data business
Structured ECDIS training
Use of ECDIS for environmental monitoring and protection ECDIS for future application

Participants to this international event will be from shipping lines, port authorities, maritime safety agencies, research institutions, navies, coast guards and hydrographic offices.

For further enquiries on the Conference, please call:

(1) MPA, Hydrographic Department Tel: (65) 63751222/63751223 Fax: (65) 62787646 Website at http://www.mpa.gov.sg., or
(2) United Kingdom Hydrographic Office Tel: +44 (0)1823 324189/337900 Fax: +44 (0)1823 352304

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