Conference aims to facilitate unification of place names JEDDAH: An event to strengthen cooperation and facilitate the exchange of ideas about geographical place names in Arab countries began in Jeddah on Sunday. Experts from 22 Arab nations and international organizations gathered for the start of the 10th Forum of the Arab Division of Experts in Geographical Names, which is scheduled to run for three days. The event is being held under the theme “Strengthening Relations and Links Between Arab States in the Field of Geographical Names,” and is hosted under the auspices of Prince Khalid bin Salman, the minister of defense and chairman of the board of directors of the General Authority for Survey and Geospatial Information. The conference, which was opened by Jeddah Gov. Prince Saud bin Abdullah bin Jalawi, aims to facilitate joint Arab action in various fields, including the documentation of geographical names; unifying geographical names in Arabic, avoiding the use of colloquial dialects; and launching new national committees. Mohammed bin Yahya Al-Sayel, president of the authority, noted that Saudi Arabia placed great importance on the topic of geographical names. The authority on the opening day signed 10 memorandums of cooperation with a number of entities in the government sector, the academic sector, and the nonprofit sector. Tim Trainer, a part-time consultant to the UN and former chief geospatial scientist for the US Census Bureau, told Arab News: “The collaboration, from a regional perspective, is very impressive, and it seems there is a positive path to that collaboration.” Meanwhile, Tariq Aba Al-Khail, the official spokesperson for the Saudi Geological Survey, spoke of the importance of documenting data on mineral sites through the National Geological Information Database.