The future of China's space travel plans came into sharper focus on Thursday when the State Council in principle gave the go-ahead to a space development plan, plotting China's advances in the field until 2010.

 

Addressing the conference where the plan was approved, Chinese Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan highlighted the importance of the 11th five-year period (2006-2010) to China's space development.

 

Zeng revealed that priority would be given to accomplishing a manned space flight, lunar exploration, developing a new launch vehicle, and carrying out high-resolution earth observation.

 

He added that China should pay close attention to the industrialization of space technologies and forge ahead with developing telecommunication, navigation and remote sensing satellites.

 

The value of space technologies can be measured for their contribution to the Chinese economy and for their capacity in maintaining consistently high-quality services in terms of telecommunication, weather forecasting and maritime investigation, he said.

 

Finally, Zeng also called for private investment in the space sector to help diversify its results.

 

(Xinhua News Agency May 11, 2007)