China's navigation system accesses ASEAN market

Three model satellite stations based on China's domestically made Beidou navigation system were shown to the public Wednesday in an industrial estate in Thailand, the first step of Beidou into the ASEAN market.

It is a part of a cooperative agreement signed between China and Thailand. Li Deren, chairman of the Wuhan Optics Valley Beidou Geo-Spatial Information Industry Co., LTD, a participant in the project, said at a seminar that all such base stations will be completed in Thailand within two years.

They will form a network covering all areas of the country, and expand into other ASEAN countries and regions.

"The Beidou navigation satellite system is expected to cover the globe with a constellation of 32 satellites by around 2020," said Li, adding that cooperations with Myanmar and Malaysia will also be enhanced in next two years.

"It is estimated that Beidou navigation satellite industry alone will realize an output value of 400 billion yuan (about 65 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020 across the world," Li said.

The network can improve precision, sensitivity and speed of Beidou's positioning and navigating services after covering the world, and can help in steel, oil, electricity, agricultural, environmental supervision, traffic monitoring and other fields.