China has agreed to buy 160 Airbus planes in a $17.4 billion deal that the European aerospace giant said was its biggest with the Asian nation.
The deal, announced as part of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to China, involves 110 planes from the short-haul A320 family and 50 A330 wide-body passenger airliners.
China's domestic air traffic is expected to double every five years and aviation authorities believe three of their airlines will be among the world's top 10 both in terms of passenger traffic and revenue by 2020.
This makes it absolutely essential for Airbus - as well as US rival Boeing - to be part of the market.
In a bid to cement its ties with China, Airbus began in May construction of an assembly plant in Tianjin city 68 miles east of Beijing, its first outside of Europe.
The aircraft assembly facility is currently slated to begin operations in early 2009 and by 2011 hopes to be producing four A320 planes a month. It is expected to have produced a total of 300 planes by 2016.
In 2006, a visit by former French president Jacques Chirac also saw the signing of an agreement for the sale of 150 Airbus A320s to China.
