China willing to share BDS expertise with nations

China is willing to partner with other countries in sharing the development results of the Beidou navigation satellite system, or BDS, especially in exploring its potential in regional short message communication, services and international rescue efforts, a senior official of the National Development and Reform Commission said on Thursday.

Xiang Libin, deputy minister of the NDRC, said Beidou has been recognized by the International Civil Aviation Organization of the United Nations as a global standard, and that cooperation between China and the African Union as well as the League of Arab States in BDS is intensifying.

Cooperation agreements have also been signed between China and South Africa as well as Egypt in Beidou applications, he said at the Third International Summit on BDS Applications, which is being held in Zhuzhou, Hunan province from Thursday to Friday to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of BDS.

The applications of Beidou in key industries have expanded, with its coverage in transport, energy, natural resources and emergency exceeding 90 percent, he said.

Beidou has been widely installed in applications for the general public, with 98 percent of smartphones and shared bikes equipped with it.

Meanwhile, high-accuracy maps based on Beidou have covered the whole country, with daily usage exceeding hundreds of billions of times, he said.

The country will continue to support the large-scale application of Beidou, push for deep integration of Beidou with intelligent cars, smart agriculture and the low-altitude economy, and empower sectors such as delivery services, low-altitude tourism and emergency rescue, Xiang added.

Wang Jiangping, deputy minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said Beidou has developed into a world-class navigation satellite system and its high-accuracy regional short message communication service has been fully proven to have the ability to serve the whole globe.

Beidou has been widely used in communication, transport, agriculture, forestry and public security and is serving important infrastructure while also generating significant economic and social benefits, he said.

By the end of last year, the total output of the country's satellite navigation and location services industry had exceeded 530 billion yuan ($74.5 billion), while homegrown Beidou chips and modules have exceeded 400 billion pieces and there are a total of 1.4 billion pieces of equipment using the Beidou system, he said.

The MIIT will continue to accelerate Beidou applications, push for market, industrial and international development of Beidou and enable it to better serve the whole world and bring benefits to all, he added.

Aarti Holla-Maini, director at the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, said China is a central member of the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems and the Beidou navigation satellite system is expanding its applications and services to make it available to both industry and public sector users.

Space has a crucial role to play in achieving social and economic development, she said via a video link.

Modern society depends on satellites and data and the many services they provide and enable; this reliance is only going to grow in the future, she said.