Beijing, Sep 6, (IANS): In a move to promote the country's indigenously developed navigation satellite system in global markets, China is actively pushing its Beidou navigation satellite system among Asean nations.

Set up in 2000, the Beidou system comprises three parts -- the space section, the ground section and the user section. The space section contains five geostationary orbit satellites and 30 non-geostationary orbit satellites.

China is the third country in the world to develop its own satellite navigation system after the US and Russia.

Currently, there are four global navigation satellite systems -- the US-developed Global Positioning System (GPS), China's Beidou, the EU's Galileo and Russia's Glonass.

China is using a trade show, China-Asean Expo 2013, being held Sep 3-6 in Nanning, capital of China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, to promote the Beidou system.

"Beidou is relatively new compared to the Global Positioning System, so we want to take the opportunity of the China-Asean Expo to promote the system to Asean members," the Global Times quoted Ran Chengqi, director of China Satellite Navigation Office as saying Thursday.

According to the Global Times report, China wants more companies from the Asean to participate in the research and development of applications for Beidou, a move that would improve the system's international competitiveness.

According to Ran, as most Asean countries are geographically closer to the equator, the Beidou system is advantageous.

"We launched some automotive navigation devices in Thailand last year, and plan to expand the business to Indonesia and Malaysia," Gu Zhengxi, deputy general manager of Beijing-based CenNavi Technologies told the Global Times.

In May this year, Pakistan became the fourth country in the Asia-Pacific region to use the Beidou system after it signed up to host ground stations for the navigation system.

Apart from Pakistan, Thailand, Laos and Brunei already use the Chinese system.