More than 130 million passengers will be transported by Chinese airlines this year, second only to the United States, Yang Yuanyuan, director general of the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC), said Sunday.

Yang made the remark at the signing ceremony for the construction of a state-level aviation science and technology industrial base in Tianjin, a port city in north China.

Yang said China's aviation industry has advanced rapidly in recent years, with the number of passengers transported by Chinese airlines rising from the 11th in the world in 1995 to the ninth in 2000.

The number of China's passenger planes is expected to reach anywhere from 1,400 to 1,500 by the year 2010, a rise of 500-600 passenger planes from the current level, and the number is expected to reach 3,000 passenger planes by 2020, according to Yang.

Yang said, science and technology is an important indicator of a country's transportation capacity and economic strength and the aviation science, said Yang, and technology base in Tianjin will be a vital step China takes to improve its aviation transportation capacity.

The base will engaged mainly in development of air traffic control and telecommunications and navigation facilities, special equipment for airport, processing and production of spare parts and other equipment of aircraft, and research and growth of aviation sciences and technologies, repair of aircraft, personnel training and technological services.

Source: Xinhua