Ukraine plans to participate in the drafting of a new CIS convention on cooperation in the exploration and use of space for peaceful purposes, work on which will be launched in 2014 by a special working group under the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (IPA), the press office of the State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU) reported on Wednesday.

The drafting of the new convention was discussed at a meeting between IPA experts involving representatives of space agencies, science academies, research institute and design bureaus of the CIS countries, which was recently held in St. Petersburg (Russia).

"The meeting participants decided to set up a working group that will analyze the current contractual framework and draw up a strategy and project of a new multilateral treaty - the convention on cooperation in the space sector. The group will be formed by the end of the year, and it will begin its work in the first quarter of 2014," reads the statement.

According to SSAU, experts who participated in the meeting confirmed that there was common interest and understanding of the need for cooperation, given the earlier formed historical framework.

"Institutes remained, and there are common methods and common approaches to research and joint development," reads the statement.

"Certain areas of cooperation related to the use of the Russian satellite navigation system GLONASS and space systems on Earth remote sensing with the technical regulations and creation of common approaches and standards in the implementation of space projects have already been worked out," the meeting participants said.

"Cooperation in the field of space communications, joint response to emergency situations and the monitoring of agricultural lands is also being worked out," the agency said.

Russia, as well as Brazil, China, the United States and the European Space Agency (ESA), is currently a major partner of Ukraine in the space sector.