China's indigenous Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) on Thursday began providing services to users in the Asian-Pacific region, according to a spokesman of the system.

The services include positioning, navigation, timing and short messages for China and surrounding areas, said spokesman Ran Chengqi, also director of the China Satellite Navigation Office.

Ran further specified that the open service will be provided with positioning accuracy of 10 meters, velocity accuracy of 0.2 meters per second and one-way timing accuracy of 50 nanoseconds. (Xinhua)

Ran Chengqi, the spokesman for the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), introduces the symbol of BDS during a press conference in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 27, 2012. Ran announced that the BDS, China's domestically-produced navigation system, began providing positioning, navigation, timing and short message services to civilian users in China and surrounding areas in the Asia-Pacific region on Thursday. (Xinhua/He Junchang)