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Over the past decade, China has built Beijing Daxing International Airport and Chengdu Tianfu International Airport. As an important part of the integrated transportation system and a key infrastructure of air transport, civil transport airports have seen remarkable progress in their construction. What are the major moves next concerning the construction of infrastructure in the civil aviation sector? Are there any highlights that we can look forward to? Thank you.

Dong Zhiyi:

Thank you for your questions. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, China's civil aviation sector has worked to support the implementation of major national strategies and regional coordinated development. We keep strengthening infrastructure construction in the civil aviation sector, and our supporting capacity continues to improve. Over the past decade, China's fixed-asset investment in the civil aviation sector has reached 800 billion yuan. That figure continued to exceed the 100-billion-yuan threshold in 2020 and 2021, hitting a record high. With 67 transport airports built and 15 more relocated in the past decade, the total number of transport airports in the country has been brought to 250. China also added 84 new runways, 8 million square meters of terminal buildings, and 3,000 aircraft stands. The total designed capacity of domestic airports can handle more than 1.4 billion passenger trips, which effectively mitigated the problem of shortage in airport facilities.

In the meantime, we have sped up the construction of modern integrated transport hubs centered around airports. The connectivity of hub airports and rail transit has reached 71.4%. We have also established and put into operation three world-leading air traffic control centers, namely the civil aviation operation management center, the aviation weather center, and the flight information management center. This remarkably improved our capacity to provide related services. In addition, we promoted the building of civil aviation safety test bases and sci-tech demonstration zones, and our ability to support scientific research and innovation saw remarkable improvement.

The 14th Five-Year Plan period is vital for China to upgrade from a single air transport powerhouse to one with civil aviation strength in multiple fields. The construction of civil aviation infrastructure will focus on breaking the bottlenecks in resource capacity, highlight an innovation-driven approach, and improve both quality and efficiency and build up synergy in a bid to establish a first-class civil aviation infrastructure system. The focuses of development are as follows:

First, we need to speed up the efforts to improve the modern and integrated national airport system. Focusing on expediting the building of hub airports, optimizing the layout of non-hub airports, improving the quality and efficiency of existing facilities, and building integrated airport transport hubs, we will continue to scale up investment, increase the supply of high-quality facilities, break bottlenecks in the hub's transport capacity, and further improve the quality of the integrated national airport system.

Second, we need to effectively improve the support and service capacity of air traffic control. With an aim to build a modern air traffic control system featuring great safety, efficiency, intelligence, and coordination, we need to enhance the capacity for air traffic control forces, improve the efficiency of their services, and enhance the traffic control ability of small and medium-sized airports. We also need to expedite the digital transformation of air traffic control and strengthen its leading and supportive role for the entire sector.

Third, we need to enhance the supportive role of science and education facilities. Focusing on the civil aviation industry's major demand and bottlenecks in the development and relevant cutting-edge technologies, we need to launch sci-tech innovation projects, establish sci-tech innovation platforms, improve the education facilities of civil aviation universities, develop key talented personnel for the sector at an accelerated pace, and improve the supply of talented personnel.

Fourth, we will steadily advance the construction of new type of infrastructure. We will further focus on the main task of developing intelligent civil aviation in the Special Plan for Passenger Services of Air Transport during the 14th Five-Year Plan period and implement the road map for intelligent civil aviation construction. Aiming at enhancing capacities for "digital perception, decision-making based on data, lean management, and meticulous services," we will coordinate the development of traditional and new types of infrastructure, build a foundation for a modern air transport system, and foster and develop new forms of business, new services, and new abilities so as to improve the quality and efficiency of the industry and expand the driving force for its development. 

This year marks an important year for fully implementing the 14th Five-Year Plan. The civil aviation industry increased investment in fixed assets and steadily promoted the development of airports, air traffic management, relevant science and education, and other major projects. From January to May, the investment in fixed assets across the whole industry reached 34.32 billion yuan, up by 6.6% year on year. It can be said that we got off to a good start. Thank you.

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