The average annual growth rate for air transport will likely stay around 10 percent in a decade from 2001 to 2010, he said Sunday in the southern city of Zhuhai at the China International Aviation and Aerospace Forum 2002.

By 2010, China's total air traffic would reach 30 billion ton-kilometer, and 140 million passengers and 4.7 million tons of cargo and mail would be carried annually. Air transport's share in the country's overall transport system would be considerably boosted, as would the proportion of China's air traffic in the world civil aviation industry.

Moreover, the application range of general aviation would widen greatly and the volume of work would grow considerably.

Meanwhile, Gao noted that the pace of development of the country's civil aviation industry was attributed to a number of reasons such as China's vast territory, abundant resources, a vast population, demand for air transport, the considerable scale of the current civil aviation industry, and the great interest in China from the global industry.

(People's Daily November 4, 2002)