CRI听力:China Civil Aviation Industry Booming

Can you picture a trillion yuan? It might take you a minute to really grasp how much that is. You could try imagining one billion people who each have 10 thousand yuan in hand. This immense figure is related to a fast-developing industry in China - the civil aviation sector.

For the past five years, the total investment in this industry has exceeded one trillion yuan, and over the following five years, the country is planning to invest another 1.5 trillion yuan. Of course, these vast sums raise certain questions about how it will be spent. Civil Aviation Administration of China Director Li Jiaxiang says that the airline companies in China are purchasing another 1900 aircraft to enlarge the current flight team by 40 percent over the next five years.

"For example, the 200 planes we purchased from the United States was the quota for last year, this year and the next year. We will need to sign purchasing contracts with countries like United States and France for the next four years again. The total number will exceed 400 aircraft. Large airplanes take up the major share."

The planes bought for civil aviation are mainly of two types, one are the large jets that are competitive internationally.
 
The other category are smaller craft that are mainly used for domestic flights. In 2010, China spend more than nearlly 15 billion US dollars on buying aircraft from France. This year, Chinese domestic airlines made another 18 billion dollars order from the U.S. Li Jiaxiang says the purchase of the Airbus A380 by China Southern Airlines is only one of the major steps forward for the Chinese airline companies in expanding their reach on the international market.

"At present, we've already got too many planes with 150 seats for domestic routes. On the other hand, we've got limited numbers of bigger planes for international routes, that have 250 seats or more. So why do we have so few international flight services? The major reason is that the domestic market is too prosperous. Many airline companies do not want to invest too much on overseas routes, but in the long run, domestic and overseas routes should be connected and properly integrated."

China has signed navigation contracts with 112 countries around the world, which provide legal flight rights for Chinese airlines to use these countries' domestic airspace. However, these rights haven't been fully exploited by China. For example, the United States have taken full use of our airspace as issued by the contract, but the Chinese civil airline companies haven't even used 50 percent of their access to American airspace.

Domestically, the potential for development is still huge. Eighty percent of the local airports have been suffering losses. Local governments have to provide an average subsidy of 10 million yuan a year for those airports, but more cities are trying to build more airports. Director Li Jiaxiang says that this is reasonable.

"The loss is minor compared to the contribution an airport provides to the local economy. For example, the airport of Yancheng city in Jiangsu Province has attracted many companies from Korea to set up shop nearby. Those enterprises turn in three billion yuan in taxes every year and the airport gets an annual subsidy of 33 million yuan from the local government. But the profit is 100 times this much. It's easy to see how this benefits the public."

In 2010, the overall number of people taking trips on Chinese domestic airlines reached about 208 million and the number will probably reach 300 million this year. According to research from the International Airport Association, every one million passengers flowing through the airport can bring economic benefits of 130 million US Dollars. In China, the passenger flows can create 1.8 billion yuan a year with more than five thousand jobs. The ratio of civil aviation investment and economic development is one to eight.

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.