BEIJING, Nov 19 (INP): China has stepped up its efforts promoting satellite data sharing with Pakistan and other regional countries.

The data sharing is aimed at helping in urban planning, disaster monitoring and assessment, as well as agriculture and forest surveys.

“We will construct the Data Sharing Service Cloud Platforms by using existing and potential co-developed satellites to serve these purposes,” Li Xinjun, secretary-general of APSCO, said at a forum commemorating the 10th anniversary of the founding of the organization on Wednesday.

Headquartered in Beijing, APSCO has eight members — China, Bangladesh, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand and Turkey, while Indonesia is a signatory, Mexico an observer and Egypt an associate member.

“By pooling up and sharing financial, technological and human resources in space science, technologies and applications, APSCO has effectively promoted multilateral cooperation to facilitate capacity building for its members,” he said.

Through the Data Sharing Service Platform Network, more than 8,000 satellite images have been provided to APSCO members for a wide range of applications, including research, disaster management, as well as environmental monitoring and assessment, with all data from China’s nine Earth observation satellites free of charge.

APSCO has also initiated 13 cooperative projects, with one for studying earthquake precursors in the ionosphere and another for observing space objects with ground-based optical facilities reporting completion of first-phase construction.

INP/J/SB