China and Arab states will strengthen their communication and cooperation in promoting and using the Beidou Navigation Satellite System, according to participants at an international forum that was held in Beijing on Wednesday.

Officials, industry leaders and researchers from China and the League of Arab States shared their thoughts at the Third China-Arab States Beidou System Cooperation Forum and agreed to take advantage of the Beidou system to further socioeconomic development in the Arab world.

More than 300 people participated, including representatives from 17 Arab nations and four international organizations, including the Arab Organization for Agricultural Development and the Arabic Air Carriers Organization, as well as officials and researchers from China.

He Yubin, chairman of the China Satellite Navigation Committee, said at the forum that his committee is willing to share its knowledge about Beidou's applications with Arab nations and work with those countries to design solutions based on the system for their socioeconomic development.

"We will continue communicating and cooperating with Arab states to promote Beidou-based services and provide localized solutions and products, so together we can bring more benefits to both Chinese and Arab people," he said.

Li Chengwen, Chinese ambassador for the Affairs of China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, said that the China-Arab states cooperation using Beidou has huge potential and abundant market opportunities. It will become a new driving engine for bilateral high-tech collaboration and will help to strengthen the China-Arab strategic partnership, he said.

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

In June last year, the final satellite to complete Beidou's third-generation network was lifted by a Long March 3B carrier rocket, launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province, and was placed into a geostationary orbit about 36,000 kilometers above the Earth. The next month, the system started providing full-scale global services.

Since 2000, 59 Beidou satellites, including the first four experimental ones, have been launched from Xichang on 44 Long March 3-series rockets, with some of them having been retired.

Beidou began providing positioning, navigation, timing and messaging services to civilian users in China and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region in December 2012. At the end of 2018, it started providing basic global services.