The Chinese leading geographic information service provider Wuhan University Geoinformatics Co., Ltd (GeoStar) officially opened its Finnish branch on August 25 in Espoo, a southern city next to the capital Helsinki.

The branch aimed to look for Finnish customers and business partners to further develop its own technology. It marked the first Hubei geographic information system (GIS) firm entering into European market.

On the same day, Jia Yaobin, executive Vice Major of China’s Wuhan City, and Liu Yifu, CEO of China’s Wuhan University Geoinformatics Co., Ltd (GeoStar), unveiled a board for the Finnish agency of “Wuhan· China Optics Valley” geographic information industrial technology innovation strategic alliances.

GeoStar is a technology transfer company of Wuhan University founded in 1999. With its innovative technology and intellectual property rights, GeoStar is the only high-tech company in China which can provide services covering the whole life cycle of geospatial information, from fast spatial data acquisition through production, to integration and management, sharing, and publishing.

According to Liu Yifu, enterprises in GIS and remote sensor industry were relatively denser in Nordic countries, so GeoStar chose Finland as its first official European workplace. (hubei.gov.cn by Mao Huifang)