ST. PETERSBURG, June 16./TASS/. The participation of private companies in the project of a Russian-Chinese lunar surface base is not ruled out in the future, Roscosmos Deputy Director General for International Cooperation Sergey Savelyev said at the presentation of a roadmap for the creation of the moon base within the framework of GLEX-2021 Global Space Exploration Conference on Wednesday.

"For now, we have not formalized any guidelines concerning private companies, but we don’t rule out the participation of private business. This is a matter of future work," Savelyev said.

Earlier reports said that China and Russia are planning to start the construction of an international lunar base in 2026 and complete it by 2035.