France’s airplane maker and Boeing’s rival Airbus Industrie has clinched a multi-billion Chinese order. Under the agreement, Airbus will sell China 150 Airbus A320 planes. Some of those planes would be assembled in China in a factory at the northeastern city of Tianjin. The factory will build its first A320 in three years in 2009. It will then build four of these planes a month.
The mammoth deal also includes an option for China to buy 20 of the world’s biggest commercial plane - the Airbus A350.
With the breakneck economic development for the past two and half decades in China, the demand for air travel in the country has grown manifolds. Airlines in China have ordered 150 Boeing 737 planes in the last few years.
On this, Airbus CEO Louis Gallois said;
It is a means for us to develop a long-term vision with the Chinese. It is clear that building the planes in China will give the Chinese an incentive to buy more of our aircraft.
If expansion of airlines is any indicator of economic development in a country, there can be no denying that this deal, which adds to another 150 Airbuses ordered last year during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to France shows that the Chinese economy is not only booming but is actually driving the world economy like never before.
News: BBCNews.com
