China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) is Beijing’s export arm for space. It was created in 1980 under CASC to sell Long March launches, turnkey satellites, and infrastructure projects to customers outside China. If China Satcom is the domestic utility, CGWIC is the international salesman.

Their core product is the Long March family. CGWIC books and manages commercial launches, usually on Long March 3B for GEO satellites, though newer variants like 5 and 7 are slowly making their way into the catalogue. Customers have included countries without their own launch capacity, from Pakistan to Nigeria to Venezuela. Western commercial work has dried up thanks to U.S. ITAR restrictions, but CGWIC has kept busy with governments aligned with China or priced out of Western options.

Beyond launch, CGWIC offers what it calls “turnkey satellite solutions.” In practice, this means delivering an entire national space program: spacecraft built by CAST or SAST, a launch slot, ground control facilities, and training. Dozens of developing nations have used this package to get a “first satellite” into orbit. Nigeria’s NigComSat-1, Venezuela’s Venesat-1, and Pakistan’s Paksat are all products of this model.

CGWIC’s role is political as much as commercial. It supports Belt and Road partnerships, strengthens bilateral ties, and cements dependence on Chinese space infrastructure. These deals are often wrapped in soft financing or bundled with telecom contracts, making them difficult for customers to refuse. For Beijing, it is a way to expand strategic influence under the banner of space development.

The limitations are structural. Western satellite builders and launch providers are effectively out of reach. CGWIC operates almost entirely in the Global South, where deals are smaller and often politically fragile. Reliability of earlier satellites has also been uneven, undermining confidence in some markets.

CGWIC is not a growth company. It is a state vehicle for exporting Chinese space capacity and binding partners into China’s industrial ecosystem. Its commercial footprint is limited by sanctions and geopolitics, but its political value to Beijing is significant. It will remain active as long as there are governments willing to buy sovereignty in orbit on China’s terms.