The output value of China's geographic information industry should reach 360 billion yuan (56.6 billion U.S. dollars) in 2015, an increase of 22 percent year on year, a senior insider has said.
Marked by great technological advances and service expansion, the geomatics industry has grown rapidly in recent years, with an annual growth rate of more than 20 percent since 2011, Song Chaozhi, deputy director of the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation, said at a conference on Tuesday.
Among the country's 15,000 companies providing surveying and mapping services, private enterprises have witnessed fastest development, though the sector is still struggling to innovate in core technology, Song added.
China issued its first development plan for the geographic information industry in 2014, vowing to establish a system with independent intellectual property rights by 2020.
