Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the first International Summit on BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) Applications on Thursday. 

With the acceleration of digital development in the world, temporal and spatial services, and positioning and navigation services have emerged as important new infrastructures, Xi said in his letter.

Since he announced the completion and commissioning of the BDS-3 in July last year, the BDS has been used in more than half of countries and regions in the world, he noted. The application of the BDS has entered a key stage of marketization, industrialization and internationalization, he added. 

Xi stressed that the BDS benefits the Chinese people as well as people in countries and regions across the globe. China is committed to principles of openness and integration, coordination and cooperation, compatibility and complementarity, and benefit sharing in building the BDS, he said. The country stands ready to work with other parties to promote the development of the BeiDou industry and bring more benefits to the world and mankind, he said. 

The two-day summit, with the theme of "BDS Serves the World, Application Fuels the Future," opened in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, on Thursday.