"Boeing is taking part in discussions with a view towards eventually participating in the Galileo project," the spokeswoman said.

The US group had not yet taken a firm decision however, she added, though Handelsblatt quoted other sources close to the matter as saying that Boeing has essentially decided to join bidding for the project.

The Galileo system is designed to compete with the US GPS system by 2013, following approval last week by European lawmakers following several false starts.

European industrial groups which were initially to finance half of the project were later replaced by public souces of funding, but they continue to bid for contracts to be awarded by the European Commission and the European Space Agency.

The project, worth about 3.4 billion euros (5.2 billion dollars) between now and 2013, is to be broken down into six sectors: Satellites, launch vehicles, softwear, ground relay stations, control centres, and overall managment.

Each sector is to be headed by an industrial leader expected to sub-contract 40 percent of the work.

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