VIENNA - Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) Mazlan Othman congratulated China's success in space docking and praised its commitment to peaceful use of outer space.

"I'd like to extend our warmest and deepest congratulations to the government and the people of China for the successful docking between the Shenzhou-8 and Tiangong-1," Othman said in an interview with Xinhua here on Thursday.

"We are very proud of China's development and the incredible progress that China is making today," she said.

The docking has made China the third country to have independently developed space docking technology after the United States and Russia.

It was an important step for China's next step in establishing a permanent orbiting space station, she added.

Othman highly praised China's support for peaceful use of outer space and its standing against the militarization and weaponization of outer space.

"We are very hopeful that China will lead the way into making space a place that can benefit the developing countries. We hope that China's involvement in this will be enhanced in the future," she said.

"China has already great influence and status economically; this of course enhances China's standing in the world and be able to lead the world in adventure into outer space, which is afterwards the final frontier for human kind," she said.

The UNOOSA has had fruitful cooperation with China in recent years, she said. China actively participating in activities of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, she added.

"We have an office in Beijing which deals with space base information for disasters management and emergency response. We also have had several activities in China. The Chinese government has supporting our Human Space Technology Initiative through your experts, you have place in our office," she said.

Talking about the challenges, Othman stressed that in addition to factors such as technology and regulations, international cooperation was very important.

"International cooperation is the way towards peaceful use of outer space," she said.