China has released this year’s white paper on its satellite navigation and location service. It says the industry’s annual production value reached over 200 billion yuan. The figure is expected to hit 400 billion by 2020. The indigenous Beidou navigation satellite system alone accounted for 20 percent.

The country plans to launch another 30 Beidou satellites in the next 5 years. The first batch of 18 satellites will be launched before 2018 to cover countries along the routes in the “Belt and Road” initiative. By 2020, a constellation of 35 satellites will cover the whole globe to provide all-time, all-weather and high-accuracy positioning.