HARBIN — China is planning to finish building a high precision national comprehensive positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) system on the basis of BeiDou system by 2035.

With the completion of the system, China will obviously improve its ability in space and time information service, said Ran Chengqi, head of the office for management of BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, at the Ninth China Satellite Navigation Conference held from May 23 to 25 in Harbin, capital of Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province.

Named after the Chinese term for the Big Dipper constellation, the BeiDou project was formally initiated in 1994. It began to serve China in 2000 and the Asia-Pacific region at the end of 2012.

By around 2020, when the BeiDou system goes global, it will have more than 30 satellites.

The BeiDou system has been widely used in public security, transportation, fishing, power supplies, forestry and disaster relief in China.

For example, 33,500 taxis and 21,000 buses in Beijing, and 40,000 fishing boats off the country’s coast are equipped with terminals of the BeiDou system.

China’s satellite navigation industry was worth 255 billion yuan ($39.9 billion) in 2017.