Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (Glonass) will be setting up several of its ground bases in China, a Russian company announced on Tuesday.
"We with our Chinese colleagues have already inspected the sites near Chinese cities of Urumqi and Changchun. In December we will start joint works at the chosen sites," Andrei Tyulin, general manager of the Russian Space Systems, told Interfax news agency.
"Joint work with Chinese partners has been especially important in order to meet the growing demand for the precision positioning services," the general manager said.
Users of Russia's global navigation system Glonass will benefit from the stations' deployment in China as the installations will bring location accuracy to one meter or better, Tyulin said.
Dmitry Rogozin, Russian deputy prime minister, said in April that the country is looking to have closer economic relations with China, with special focus on joint operations in field of high technology like Glonass and its Chinese counterpart, the Beidou satellite navigation system.
Glonass currently has 19 ground bases in Russia, three in the Antarctic and one in Brazil; two stations are being planned for deployment in Kazakhstan and one more in Belarus, according to the Global Times.
Russia is planning to have as many as 40 to 50 Glonass stations across the globe, including the United States, Brazil and South Africa.
The country started deploying Glonass bases in 1993, taking cue from the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS).