A modern Land Information Systems (LIS) is increasingly recognised as essential to a modern land market economy. However, while the ideals of a modern LIS are well defined, the investment issues involved in modernising an existing system are less clear. This research attempts to clarify the issues involved in assessing the costs, benefits and values of instituting a LIS in a developing country, by studying the case of Sabah, in East Malaysia. It argues that instead of approaching LIS investment by quantifying the anticipated LIS benefits, many of which are unquantifiable, it is preferable to minimise existing inefficiencies and ineffectiveness in current procedures. The research demonstrates that the existing shortfalls in the management of land information in Sabah, particularly in granting land titles, suppresses the land market value by as much as MR1.2 billion. In addition, it identifies annual losses ranging between MR0.2 to 0.8 million in lost revenue. The efficiency benefits with a computerised and modern LIS infrastructure are estimated to be worth MR1.1 million per annum. It is postulated that an investment of MR118 million, in addition to the current LIM expenses, will be required to overcome existing inefficiencies and ineffectiveness. This amount is deemed necessary to identify problems, intensify the digital data conversion effort for the proposed Sabah Land Information System (SALIS), and to undertake the cadastral survey activities required for producing land titles. The investment should result in an undiscounted benefit to cost ratio of 10:1 for the state. While the approach developed in this thesis does not purport to be the ideal solution for other developing nations as each national LIS investment problem is unique, the conclusion is that any major investment in a LIS should be driven by minimising current inefficiencies and ineffectiveness, and by the needs of the end users.