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 CAAC will continue to expedite the development of civil aviation sci-tech industry, realize the digestion of foreign technologies, dedicate itself to building a complete technological and industrialized innovation system so as to further promote the development of China's civil aviation industry toward being bigger and stronger, said Yang Yuanyuan.

By People's Daily Online