China is willing to strengthen exchange and co-operation with all countries around the world in an effort to make a greater contribution to the exploration and peaceful use of outer space.
All exploration and utilization of outer space is for the social and economic development of mankind, Luan Enjie, head of the China National Space Administration, told the opening ceremony of the sixth Asia-Pacific Conference on Multilateral Co-operation in Space Technology and Applications.
"Mankind has to expand its space for development from land, sea and the aerosphere to outer space as their demands have been swollen and present living space has become limited," Luan told more than 300 officials and experts from more than 20 countries including Thailand, Pakistan and the Republic of Korea from the Asia-Pacific region.
Luan said the high-level conference aims to analyze their achievements from co-operation during the past 10 years since countries started to join hand in hand in the field.
"Meanwhile, we will map out a clear blueprint for further teamwork in the coming 10 years," Luan said.
He said all potential actions have just one end: promote Asia-Pacific economic and social development.
Entrusted by the central government, Liu Jibin, minister of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence, sent a congratulatory message to Thursday's conference.
"The world should be in sound order and co-operation among Asia-Pacific countries has been fruitful in peacefully and jointly exploring outer space," Liu said.
During the three-day meeting, such topics as satellite systems, mini-satellites, manned space flight and space stations are on the main agenda for discussion, according to Luan.
And space science will also be in the spotlight, including the space environment, deep space exploration, space robotics and space applications ranging from telecommunications, remote sensing, scientific experiment, and micro-gravity to disaster mitigation.
Massive co-operation in this field among Asia-Pacific nations started in 1992.
Initiated by China, Thailand and Pakistan, experts and officials from 16 countries in the region sat together in Beijing discussing space utilization technology. At the 1992 workshop, the Asia-Pacific Space Co-operation Organization was established, in which China was elected co-ordinator.
Since then, the regional organization has been the spur for many bilateral and multilateral space co-operation agreements and projects in the region.
The previous five conferences on the regions' outer space utilization have been held in Thailand, Pakistan, the Republic of Korea, Bahrain and Iran respectively during the past 10 years.
(China Daily 09/21/2001)
