On July 4th, the Seventh Meeting of the Council of Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO) was held in Beijing. Dr. MA Xingrui, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), as well as Administrator of China National Space Administration(CNSA) as the Vice Chairman of APSCO Council and the Chinese Member of the Council, together with Chinese delegation. 8 Member States of APSCO, namely Bangladesh, China, Iran, Thailand, Pakistan, Mongolia, Peru and Turkey, and the signatory country, Indonesia sent delegations to attend the meeting.

Dr. Ma stressed in his speech that since the APSCO was established five years ago, all Member States have cooperated in the framework and carried out fruitful cooperative activities and projects. China is not only a Member State of APSCO, but also an initiative and host country, which will always continue to support the sound development of ASPCO.

Dr. Ma pointed out that in recent years China’s space industry developed rapidly. For instance, manned spaceflight, lunar exploration, high-resolution Earth observation system, and Beidou satellite navigation system represent the significant progress China has made in space activities. At the same time, advances in space technology will be increasingly and extensively applied to people’s livelihood, to serve for improving people’s life quality. Relying on domestic space industry, China will as always to provide the necessary support for the development of APSCO in an appropriate approach.

Looking ahead, Dr. MA expressed his hope that all APSCO Member States could continue to give full play of their respective advantages, to support the implementation of specific projects in the APSCO plan. Starting from relatively easy activities, considering basic activities for all Member States as the focus, we can gradually expand areas of cooperation, thus making APSCO play a more important role in improving the ability of space technology applications and promoting the development of economy and society in the APSCO Member States.