(Agencies via Today) Watch out Boeing and Airbus.
China has approved a plan to build large passenger aircraft to
compete with Boeing and Airbus, which together currently dominate
the country's fast-growing aviation market.
The decision was made at a meeting of the Cabinet presided over by
Premier Wen Jiabao after listening to details of a feasibility
study on the project, the State Council said in a statement posted
on the government's website yesterday.
The plan is to "design and build airplanes that can carry more than
150 passengers and compete with Airbus and Boeing", according to
the state-run China Daily.
The newspaper reported that the decision followed a report by a
group set up six months earlier to research the feasibility of the
project.
No timeframe was given, but there had been hints.
Last week, a top official of state-owned China Aviation Industry
Corporation I a major aerospace company said that the company
planned to start making large aircraft by 2020 to reduce its
reliance on foreign manufacturers.
"As a country with a huge demand for large-sized planes, it is
absolutely unimaginable to rely on imports of aero-engines for
long," Mr Liu Daxiang, the company's deputy chief of science and
technology, told the China Daily.
China's new-generation engines must be more powerful than those in
use in current Airbus or Boeing aircraft, Mr Liu said.
In yesterday's statement, the Cabinet also said that it had
approved a plan to set up a company to manufacture large
aircraft.
China has the technical and material capabilities to develop large
aircraft, having been building its aviation industry for 50 years,
the statement said.
China's experience has so far been limited to manufacturing
smaller, regional aircraft, with the ARJ-21, holding up to 105
seats, expected to begin delivery in 2009, according to state
media.
According to the latest market outlook from China Aviation Corp I,
China will need 2,230 large aircraft by 2025.
This forecast comes on the back of impressive growth rates in civil
aviation in China, fuelled by an economy that expanded by 10.7 per
cent last year.
Some 160 million passengers flew on Chinese airlines last year, an
increase of 15 per cent on the previous year, according to
previously released local aviation statistics.
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I think it won't be surprising that China will be using their
home-made aircraft to serve at least their domestic market in years
to come.
Jus my 2 cents
