China plans to virtually triple its cargo-aircraft fleet to 660 by the year 2000. The increase forms part of ambitious plans to expand its airborne freight market by around 14% a year, making it the main priority of the national aviation growth strategy.
Zhou Baokou, deputy director of planning for the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), says: "We want to try and encourage cargo business first in China. To try to implement this growth, we are trying to emphasise mainly medium-size cargo aircraft."
Demand for extra cargo capacity is being fuelled by the surging economy. Chinese airlines carried more than 1 million tonnes of cargo in 1996, around 12 times that carried in 1990. Speaking at the China Aviation Industry Summit in Vancouver, Canada, Baokou said that the additional freighters will be required despite the available cargo capacity of the current Chinese airliner fleet. The 424 aircraft in service, 142 on lease, have a combined cargo capacity of 8 million tonnes a year, he says.
Foreign investment continues to be a major requirement , according to Baokou. "If foreign investors can help us then we can do joint ventures, or they could buy stock in any of the new companies."
Much of the growth in the cargo business will be modelled on the successful initiatives developed with Western governments and companies to build and modernise Chinese airports.
"The CAAC has utilised $7 billion of government loans from France, Japan, Kuwait, the UK and the USA to build or expand airports like Beijing. There are more projects on the way."
CAAC, meanwhile, expects passenger growth to continue at roughly the same 20% annual rate for the foreseeable future. The airlines carried around 56.5 million passengers in 1996.
Source: Flight International
