China, France sign nine documents on economic cooperation

China agreed Friday to buy 20 Airbus planes and a French satellite in two contracts signed in French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's Matignon Palace.

At the signing ceremony, seven other technical cooperation agreements were also inked, with the presence of Raffarin and visiting Chinese Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan after their talks.

The deals for 20 Airbus A330-200 planes and the French-made Alcatel television satellite are valued at more than 2 billion US dollars, according to industrial sources.

The 20 Airbus jumbo jets are scheduled to be delivered to China from the first quarter of 2006.

China, France sign nine documents on economic cooperation

Pascale Sourisse, president of Alcatel Space, a subsidiary of the French telecommunications group Alcatel, said his company had agreed to sell a satellite to Chinasat, a Chinese satellite operator preparing for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

The Electricity of France signed with a Chinese company a letter of intent concerning technical cooperation in building a nuclear power plant in southern China's Guangdong province.

Other deals signed in the ceremony included a technology transfer program of high-speed electric trains between French engineering group Alstom and China's Datong Electric Locomotive Company.