ISLAMABAD – Pakistan and China have taken yet another step forward in thespace technology cooperation.

China has stepped up its efforts promoting satellite data sharing withPakistan and other regional countries.

The data sharing was aimed to provide help in urban planning, disastermonitoring and assessment, as well as agriculture and forest surveys. “Wewill construct Data-Sharing Service Cloud Platforms by using existing andpotential co-developed satellites to serve these purposes,” APSCOsecretary-general Li Xinjun said at a forum commemorating the 10thanniversary of the founding of the organisation on Wednesday.

With its headquartered in Beijing, APSCO has eight members — China,Bangladesh, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand and Turkey, whileIndonesia is a signatory, Mexico an observer and Egypt an associate member.

“By pooling up and sharing financial, technological and human resources inspace science, technologies and applications, APSCO has effectivelypromoted multilateral cooperation to facilitate capacity building for itsmembers,” he said.