BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- A senior Chinese aerospace executive said here Wednesday that China looks forward to cooperating with the United States in the space field.

    Commenting on the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) Administrator Michael Griffin's upcoming trip to China, Zhang Qingwei, president of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., was quoted by Thursday's China Daily as saying. Zhang added that China had always welcomed such visits.

    Griffin said he had accepted an invitation from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) to visit China for talks on possible Sino-American space cooperation. The agenda of the trip had not been announced yet.

    Personally Zhang expressed the expectation that personnel exchanges between the two sides will become "normal" and more "reciprocal".

    Zhang was referring to the fact that while China's door has been open to US visitors, Chinese aerospace staff have frequently been denied visas and space scientists have sometimes had difficulty in attending international space conferences held in the United States, according to China Daily.

    Zhang said he hoped the situation would change.

    As with other countries, China and the United States can cooperate in areas including deep space exploration, commercial satellite launches and manned space flights, he said.

    So far as technology is concerned, Zhang said both two sides will respect each other's intellectual property rights.

    Zhang, also deputy chief commander of China's Manned Space Programme, said that technological innovation has enabled China to spend less money but achieve more in its manned space programme.

    According to the China Daily, China has earmarked around 20 billion yuan (2.5 billion US dollars) for its manned space programme since it was initiated in 1992, catapulting China into the exclusive space club that three years ago housed only the former Soviet Union and the United States.

    Between 1999 to 2005, China successfully launched two manned and four unmanned space mission atop the Long March 2F rockets.

    Space innovations have been increasingly applied to national economic development, Zhang said. Enditem