China plans to expand its geographic information services through wider cooperation with major countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, allowing it to play a larger role in the global market, the national mapping authority said on Nov 3.
The international mapping service cooperation will be focused on areas such as environmental monitoring, transport network construction, public security, and disaster reduction and prevention, Li Pengde, deputy head of the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation, said on Nov 3.
The geographic information services will lay the foundation for the development of the Belt and Road Initiative, serving for construction, energy exploration and other projects, and the 65 countries covered in the initiative will be major targets with which China plans to cooperate, the administration said.
China has seen tremendous changes, from being an importer of geographic information technology to a large exporter of services, technology and equipment in the past 30 years, Li said at the conference, which promotes global cooperation.
For example, the Ziyuan 3 Earth mapping satellite has covered more than 70 million square kilometers, and effective coverage in Asia, Oceania and South America has reached 62 percent, according to the administration.
In addition, the navigation systems based on the Beidou satellites have expanded to cover more than 30 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, it added.
“We have built more than 20 stations to amplify the signal from Beidou satellites in Thailand, which allow us to provide higher resolution in our services to cover the whole country,” said Du Li, manager of Wuhan Optics Valley Beidou Holding Group, a company specialized in geospatial technology output and assistance projects, located in Wuhan, Hubei province.
With the help of stations, they can draw more accurate maps for users with details at the millimeter level, but before the stations they only had a resolution of 15 meters, he said.
