Inmarsat boss hails China's Belt and Road Initiative

11 Jan '16

3 min read

China's Belt and Road Initiative is an idea that has caught the imagination the world, said Inmarsat's CEO Rupert Pearce.

The initiative offers the opportunity to build greater cooperation across Asia and Europe and to deliver unprecedented prosperity in some of the world's most populous and economically dynamic regions, Pearce told Xinhua in an interview.

Headquartered in London, Inmarsat is a leading provider of global satellite communication services. The company has long been carrying out business with its local partners in the Chinese market. Inmarsast welcomed Chinese President Xi Jingping to its London headquarters during his visit to the United Kingdom last year.

The Belt and Road Initiative was first proposed by Xi in 2013 to connect Asian, European and African countries more closely through infrastructure upgrading and promote mutually beneficial cooperation.

"Countries along the Belt and Road should improve the connectivity of their infrastructureconstruction plans and technical standard systems, jointly push forward the construction ofinternational trunk passageways, and form an infrastructure network connecting all sub-regions in Asia and between Europe and Africa step by step,” according to an action plan of the initiative released last year by the Chinese government.

Pearce said the full economic potential of the initiative can only be realized through substantial infrastructure investment.

"China is already making substantive commitments to realizing the initiative and it is clear that foreign investors too see the long-term benefits of this globally important initiative," said Pearce.

Inmarsat has made multi-billion dollar investment in the most advanced, globally available satellite broadband infrastructure, which Pearce believes is ideally placed to support the vision of the initiative.

The company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China Transport Telecommunication and Information Centre (CTTIC) to establish a strategic partnership focused on Inmarsat's Global Xpress mobile satellite broadband communications service.

The Global Xpress is a communication service that can be used "anywhere in the world and get a data speed of 50 megabytes per second", according to Pearce. It is designed to incorporate several satellites distributed around the globe to give worldwide coverage.

"The MOU with CTTIC was about positioning a partnership between Inmarsat and CTTIC to deliver those services not only in China, but also across the whole of the Belt and Road region. That is a very strategic initiative for China," said Pearce.

With the MOU signed, Inmarsat and CTTIC will also work together to provide global aviation passenger connectivity and next generation safety services to Chinese airlines.

Pearce said the Chinese aviation market is one of the fastest growing market in the world, and areas such as connectivity to the cockpit and for the internet of things, management of engines and systems, and passenger connectivity, present huge growth for satellite services. (SH)

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