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Opportunities and Partnering

One of the main objectives of GNSS Asia is to facilitate industrial cooperation between European and Asian economies on GNSS downstream applications. GNSS Asia has performed a range of activities to provide concrete support of industrial collaboration in the five Asian economies since January 2012.

European Policy on International GNSS cooperation

Europe is ready to promote Galileo and EGNOS on a global scale and since it is a huge market in itself, a supply market, and a uniquely positioned region for GNSS signal density, Asia is a key priority. This is further motivated by the presence of existing (India, China, Japan) or emerging GNSS systems (Korea).

Understanding of the background

GNSS Asia has carried out extensive research in the five Asian economies, covering the financial, socioeconomic, technological and political aspects and how they shape the local industrial GNSS landscape. On several occasions, the existing high-level cooperation framework (e.g. Free Trade Agreements, GNSS cooperation agreements, etc.) has a direct impact on the environment for industrial cooperation. The engagement of local champions has been a key priority for GNSS Asia, as they are often the key multiplier for awareness raising and industry outreach activities. Finally, specific focus has been set on identifying, on one hand, the main obstacles, and on the other, the key enablers that define the framework within which industrial GNSS cooperation can be developed.

Assessment of the GNSS downstream sector opportunities

The identification of opportunities for cooperation between Europe and the Asian economies lies at the core of activities performed by GNSS Asia. The project has been interacting regularly with a number of institutional and industrial stakeholders, both in Europe and in Asia, in order to identify areas of mutual interest. The close interaction with European and Asian companies has enabled solid knowledge of supply and demand in the respective markets, often driven by specific technological complementarities. Interaction also helped in understanding the business development strategies of involved parties.

This was further augmented by a systematic monitoring of local GNSS application priorities, driven either by market trends or related to the roll out of local GNSS. Based on the specific local interests arising, for example, around the emerging SBAS systems or connected to the eCall regulatory framework, the project has mapped corresponding business opportunities. Eventually, this feeds into the strategy for both higher level cooperation and company-to-company industrial cooperation.

Recommendations for each Asian economy

Based on the three previous inputs, GNSS Asia has elaborated a set of recommendations for a sustainable EGNSS strategy on industrial cooperation between the EU and the five Asian economies. The GNSS downstream environment in the five Asian economies is driven by different factors in each case:

  • In India, the main drivers include the intended roll out of GAGAN services in sectors other than aviation and large modernisation plans in road and rail infrastructure that call for GNSS-enabled applications.
  • In China, the government actively promotes the development and use of Beidou in different GNSS markets through a number of innovation policies and regulation measures.
  • Taiwan is focusing on boosting its export-oriented local industry output (ICT, GNSS receivers and devices) and the island’s infrastructures (mainly ITS) by utilising existing systems.
  • Korea shows concrete growth potential in advanced markets such as LBS and road. At the same time, the decision to deploy its own SBAS system will further boost the development of GNSS applications.
  • Japan is spearheading the Multi-GNSS demonstration campaign (through MGA) while IT applications making use of the QZSS platform are considered a priority to revitalising the Japanese economy.

A detailed analysis of each Asian economy’s GNSS landscape, opportunities for industrial cooperation with Europe and corresponding strategic recommendations are presented in publication.

The worldwide GNSS market is growing fast and revenues are expected to increase significantly over the next decade. A detailed analysis of market trends can be viewed in the GSA’s GNSS Market Report (see publications). At the same time, and despite significant growth, there is still a lot of untapped potential in GNSS applications. The emergence of new GNSS and in particular of Galileo, and the opportunity to combine it with GPS and GLONASS will further boost the GNSS applications sector.