BISHKEK (TCA) — China on June 5 launched the new Fengyun-2H meteorological satellite to improve the accuracy of weather forecasting and provide better meteorological services to countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, Xinhua news agency reported.
The satellite will be able to cover all the territory of China, as well as countries along the Belt and Road, the Indian Ocean and most African countries.
Equipped with a scanning radiometer and space environment monitor, Fengyun-2H will provide real time cloud and water vapor images and space weather information to clients in the Asia-Pacific region, said Wei Caiying, chief commander of the ground application system of Fengyun-2H and deputy director of China’s National Satellite Meteorological Center.
The Belt and Road region, which is mainly high mountains, deserts and oceans, lacks meteorological information. Damage from natural disasters, especially meteorological disasters, in the region is more than double the world average.
China will offer data of the Fengyun series satellites free to Belt and Road countries.
Meanwhile, Moscow considers China’s One Belt, One Road initiative as an important and promising one, as it stipulates industrial cooperation, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, Sputnik news agency reported.
“We find it a useful, important and promising initiative. This initiative is developing both with our efforts on building the Eurasian Economic Union… We have good plans for industrial cooperation… railroad construction,” Putin said in an interview with the China Media Group, published on its website, ahead of his visit to China to take part in the 18th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao.
China’s One Belt, One Road strategy was first announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 and is aimed at developing infrastructure and strengthening ties between the Eurasian countries. The initiative focuses mainly on the Maritime Silk Route and on the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt.
The SCO summit in Qingdao, scheduled for June 9-10, will gather leaders of SCO member states and observer states, as well as heads of international organizations.
It will be the first SCO summit after India and Pakistan were accepted as full members in June 2017 at the Astana summit in Kazakhstan.
After the expansion, the eight full members of the SCO are China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The SCO also has four observer states and six dialogue partners.
