China still needs about 1,588 airplanes over the next 20 years to meet increasing air transportation demands, as predicted by officials with China Institute of Aeronautic System Engineering (CIASE) on November 8.

The airplane market will continue expanding quickly in the future, said Zheng Qiang, head of CIASE, in Zhuhai of south China's Guangdong province, where the Third China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition is now going on.

Statistics from the institute show that passenger transportation via airplane in the mainland of China completed 85.7 billion kilometers of flights, listing them ninth in the world.

In the next two decades, this figure is believed to increase 8.5 percent annually to reach 438.7 billion kilometers in 2019.

China will have 1,739 passenger airplanes in 2019 including 1,294 large-scale jetliners.

In spite of that, the aviation industry in China still remains at a considerably low level and the potential market is great, said Zheng.

(China Daily 11/10/2000)