China's domestic navigation system has been gaining international recognition and use in the past five years and will integrate with Europe's Galileo satellites in the near-future, transport officials and developers announced Wednesday.
China is working to have BeiDou used by the International Civil Aviation Organization and other international systems, Peng Siyi, who is in charge of the Ministry of Transport's comprehensive planning department, said at a press conference on Wednesday, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
"I am optimistic BeiDou will eventually be compatible with all other positioning systems, but it still has a long way to go to cover the entire globe," he said.
BeiDou is coordinating with the European Space Agency Galileo navigation satellites, said BeiDou Navigation Satellite System spokesman Ran Chengqi, director general of the China Satellite Navigation Office, at the press conference.
China and the US signed a joint statement on civil signal compatibility and interoperability between BeiDou and GPS in November, according to the BeiDou website.
The BeiDou satellite navigate - sat nav - system is now compatible with the Global Positioning System (GPS) of the US. All users of either system can use the other without much extra cost, Peng said.
In 2015, BeiDou achieved compatibility and interoperability with Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), thepaper.cn reported.
"Compatibility and interoperability could make good use of the respective advantages of different systems," Peking University space science professor Jiao Weixin told the Global Times on Wednesday.
BeiDou has high accuracy in navigation and positioning in the Asia-Pacific regions, while in other regions of the world users can choose other systems, Jiao said.
Compatibility and interoperability could solve the problem that different systems interfere with each other and realize a win-win result for all systems, Ran noted.
"Some day in the future, China's BeiDou will be compatible with all other navigation systems and users will enjoy better service from navigation apps supported by more than 100 satellites," he said.
The system has already been recognized by the International Maritime Organization and the International Satellite System for Search and Rescue, Peng noted.
Cooperation is also pushing BeiDou onto the international market, which calls for better accuracy, stability and reliability to attract users, Jiao said.
"It's a new challenge for BeiDou in the future," he said.
BeiDou on Wednesday celebrated the fifth anniversary of its system launch.
China has sold more than 50 million domestically manufactured BeiDou navigation and positioning system-related chips in the last five years, Ran said.
The chips have been downsized to 28 nanometers from 0.35 micrometers, and the cheapest are priced 6 yuan ($0.9) each.
"Big production and low price will ensure BeiDou wider application in civil use," Jiao said.
