China's homegrown Beidou Navigation Satellite System, or Compass Navigation System, will be able to provide high-quality services to most users in the Asia-Pacific region this year, an unidentified official from the system's management office said Wednesday.

The official said at a seminar held in the southern city of Guangzhou that three satellites will be launched this year to help expand the system.

"With the trial run of the Beidou navigation service, we believe that China can provide high-quality satellite navigation services for most users in the Asia-Pacific region in 2012," said Xie Haizhong, general manager of the Beidou navigation science and technology department of Beijing Unistrong, a company that focuses on the global navigation satellite industry.

China began to build the Beidou system in 2000 with a goal of breaking its dependence on the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) and creating its own global positioning system by 2020. The Beidou system began providing initial positioning, navigation and timing operational services to China and its surrounding areas late last year.

Industrial experts said at the seminar that to insure the vitality of the Beidou system, its price must be near that of similar GPS systems.

Since its debut in 2000, the system has been widely used in transportation, fishery, hydrological monitoring, weather forecasting and disaster mitigation.

China to expand the Beidou satellite navigation service
The Third China Satellite Navigation Conference has opened in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province. Satellite experts, government officials and business executives from China, the US, Russia, Europe and Japan are participating in the event.

The Beidou system chief designer, Sun Jiadong, said China will expand the Beidou satellite navigation service across the entire country.

Beidou is a satellite navigation system developed by China and has been providing services since the end of 2011. The conference is a key stage for China to exchange with the world in the field of satellite navigation know-how and to enhance innovation of its own satellite techniques.

Officials say China will launch three more satellites for the Beidou network this year and a global positioning satellite and navigation system will be completed by 2020.

Source: Xinhua News Agency