At the press conference on Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's upcoming state visit to France, Slovakia, Portugal, and Malaysia from Dec.4 to 15, Director-General of the European Affairs Department with the Foreign Ministry Zhao Jun announced that Premier Wen would visit French and European aerospace and aviation companies and a series of important cooperative agreements would be signed between China and France.

The International Finance News today cites an official with Airbus as saying that deals between Chinese airplane producers and Airbus would quadruple the value of 2004 by 2007.That means Airbus would buy 60 million USD worth of airplane parts from China in 2007. The figure would further rise to 120 million USD in 2010.

The US-based Boeing, which has entered China market 13 years earlier than Airbus, declared it intends to buy 1.3 billion USD worth of airplane parts and components from China by 2010.

On Nov.29, Lan Xinguo, Chairman of Sichuan Airlines, unveiled at the ceremony for the 10th anniversary of its partnership with Airbus that his company would expand its existing A320 fleet and place its first order for A330 during Premier Wen's visit to Europe in early December.

Data from Airbus shows that China has 328 Airbus planes now, reflecting 34 percent of China's civil plane market. Airbus has achieved record sales in China so far this year which reached 8.3 billion USD for 66 planes.

By People's Daily Online