Chinese Minister for Science and Technology Wan Gang has called for more international cooperation to boost research capabilities and the level of earth observation in developing countries.

Cooperative efforts under the framework of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) will help achieve the strategic targets set in the GEOSS's 10-Year Implementation Plan by 2015, Wan said at the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Beijing Ministerial Summit here Friday.

Earth observations are efforts to monitor and collect information on the status of the geology, meteorology, and biology of the earth.

According to the GEO, earth observations help in disaster management, health, energy, climate, water, weather, ecosystems, agriculture and biodiversity.

About 500 minister-level officials and delegates from 50 countries and 40 international organizations attended the meeting.

The Chinese government hopes that GEO will make more efforts to promote the sharing of earth observation data, Wan said.

At the meeting, David Hayes, deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior of the United States, said the U.S. will launch a new global initiative to develop a database of 30-meter satellite imagery to show changes in land cover and land use worldwide.

Founded in 2005, the GEO is an intergovernmental international organization for earth observation.

China had donated satellite dishes to 17 developing countries to share data from China's Fengyun meteorological satellite network, Wan said.

China successfully launched a new meteorological satellite, the second of the Fengyun-3 (FY-3) series, early Friday morning.