In this connection, their senior officials will formally sign an APSCO's Convention at a ceremony to be held here at the Great Hall of the People. Other five countries are Iran, Thailand, Bangladesh, Mongolia and Peru.
Pakistan will be represented at the ceremony by the Chairman National Space Agency, SUPARCO Major General (Retd) Raza Hussain. APSCO is being set up to promote capabilities of the member countries in several areas of space technology applications, said a senior official of the Asia Pacific Multilateral Co-operation in Space Technology and Applications (AP-MCSTA).
He told APP in an interview that the seven Asia-Pacific countries had conveyed approval of their respective parliaments and the governments to sign the APSCO Convention and to become its formal members.
"Some other countries including Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines have also shown their intention to join this important regional body after fulfilling the necessary requirements," he added.
As per the Article-29 of the Convention, the APSCO will come into force when at least five States of the Asia-Pacific Region, which are members of the United Nations, sign it and have deposited with the host Government their instruments of ratification or acceptance.
Recently, the Government of Argentina had also approved the Convention and asked for granting the Observer's status, since it was located outside the geographic region of APSCO.
Governments of Brazil and Ukraine informed that they were also interested in joining the organisation as Associate Members/Observers.
Other governments of Asia-Pacific countries are reportedly reviewing the Convention and the procedure of approval is in progress in their respective Parliaments.
China, being a host country has offered to provide full financial support for the establishment and operation of the APSCO until 2006. As such, the member States are not under any obligation to make financial contributions during the preparatory phase. However, they will be required to pay their financial contributions from the year 2007.
It may be mentioned here that Muhammad Nasim Shah, former secretary SUPARCO played a pioneering role in preparing Charter and Convention of the proposed Asia-Pacific Space Agency.
According to the sources, the Asia-Pacific countries had broad requirements and co-operation objectives in the use of satellite remote sensing data in environmental studies/protection, natural resource exploitation as well as in disaster monitoring and prevention.
The benefits to be accrued to the Asia-Pacific countries by virtue of their membership to APSCO would be enormous, including creation of multilateral compatibility among space systems by the member states that could provide enhanced capabilities in several areas of space technology applications, the sources added.