BEIJING, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- China's BeiDou navigation and positioning system has helped rescue over 10,000 fishermen over the past five years, according to a BeiDou spokesperson.

More than 40,000 fishing vessels and around 4.8 million commercial vehicles in China have been equipped with the Beidou system, said Ran Chengqi, a BeiDou spokesperson, at a press conference Wednesday.

Ran said that the system helped reduce the rate of major road traffic accidents and injuries in 2016 by almost half from that in 2012.

"It also helped shorten the time needed by police to arrive at accident scenes by nearly 20 percent and the time for reporting of major emergencies to within one hour," he said.

He said that over 14,000 Chinese companies operate businesses related to BeiDou, employing more than 450,000 people.

The whole satellite navigation industry in China topped 211.8 billion yuan (32.3 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016, with BeiDou contributing over 70 percent.

"The industry is expected to exceed 250 billion yuan in 2017, and BeiDou could contribute to 80 percent of that," he said.