China’s Beidou Navigation Satellite System has been playing an important role in the country’s $40 billion space-based positioning and navigation business, according to a report published on Friday.

The 2018 White Paper on China’s Satellite Navigation and Positioning Industries, compiled by the Global Navigation Satellite System and Location-Based Services Association of China, says Beidou has contributed 80 percent to businesses relating to chips, software and terminal devices, which are key elements to space-based navigation and positioning services.

The system is being used in dozens of business and public sectors in China such as transportation, electric power, fishery, mining and agriculture, and more than 40 million Beidou-based terminal devices have been sold and are in use, the document says.

It notes that now more than 500,000 Chinese people work at around 14,000 domestic institutes and companies doing business in Beidou and other satellite navigation and positioning services.

The system has been applied to more than 4.8 million taxis, buses and trucks as well as at least 40,000 fishing ships across the country. More than 10,000 fishermen were rescued or received assistance after they used a Beidou device to ask for help over the past five years.

Beidou is one of the four space-based navigation networks along with the United States’ GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and European Union’s Galileo.

Since 2000, when the first Beidou satellite was placed in the space, 33 satellites have been launched for the network. Beidou began providing positioning, navigation, timing and message services to civilian users in China and parts of the Asia-Pacific region in December 2012.

China has planned to place 18 third-generation Beidou satellites into space before the end of 2018.

According to the government, the network will be made up of 35 satellites before the end of 2020 -- several now in orbit will be decommissioned by then -- to give Beidou global coverage.

zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn