Truemors
Chinas growth expected still, at 8 or 9% in 2008 and the same in 2009. The upcoming chinese middle class will fly. Airbus wants half of the market, invested $600m in a plant.
The most prominent European delegate was Tom Enders, chief executive of Airbus. Over the weekend he and Wen formally opened the plane-maker's first non-European final assembly line – in a $600m (£340m) plant on a remote former cabbage field that took less than 15 months to build and is now the most modern in the world.
Enders denies that Airbus is putting all its eggs in the Chinese basket but he and his executive team are investing heavily in the prospect of sustained growth – not just in the economy but in air traffic as consumers grow richer. They expect Chinese airlines to order more than 3,000 new planes in the next 20 years and Airbus to capture more than half of those.
Production at Airbus' China plant to begin in August 2008
The plant to build 320s, Airbus' most popular plane, is a joint venture by Airbus and a Chinese consortium. Airbus has a 51-per-cent stake in the venture, which also involves the Tianjin Free Trade Zone and the two Chinese airplane makers China Aviation Industry Corp AVIC I and AVIC II.
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