Airbus clinches China contract
China has ordered 30 passenger aircraft worth US$1.5 billion from Airbus Industrie, the high point of a day when Jacques Chirac played the presidential salesman for French business on his first day in Beijing.
In the presence of Mr Chirac and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Airbus managing director Jean Pierson signed the contract for 10 A320s and 20 A321s with Bai Zhijian, general manager of China Aviation Supplies Import and Export Corp.
Delivery is from next year to 2000.
China had not announced the operators of the aircraft or the choice of engines, Airbus said. It gave no details of the financing.
Airbus signed a second agreement on a new 100-seat aircraft it will build with Aviation Industries of China (Avic), under which the final assembly will be in China.
Airbus will hold 39 per cent, Avic 46 per cent and Singapore Technologies 15 per cent of a joint venture to manage the project that will initially produce 105 to 125-seat aircraft, due to enter service by 2003.
Airbus' European partner in the venture is Finmeccanica of Italy.
The European partners will provide expertise and technology in engineering, production, quality assurance, international programme and product support.
Six other contracts between French and Chinese companies were signed yesterday.
In the largest of these, Aero International (Regional) sold five ATR passenger planes to Civil Aviation Administration of China with an option to sell five more. It also signed an agreement of industrial co-operation with China Aeronautic Technical Import and Export Corp.
Eurocopter signed a co-operation agreement to develop a 5.5-tonne helicopter with China National Helicopter Corp.
One of the principal aims of Mr Chirac's visit is to boost France's small share of the Chinese market, where it ranks only 13th as an exporter, despite being the fourth biggest exporter in the world.
France's exports to China last year were US$2.24 billion, up 3.5 per cent on 1995 but accounting for just 1.6 per cent of China's total imports.
Mr Chirac outlined sectors in which France has a comparative advantage - energy, including nuclear, hydro-electricity for the Three Gorges project, liquefied natural gas, and coal, aviation, telecommunications, petrochemicals, metallurgy, cars and construction materials.
French financial institutions have about 40 offices in China and want to increase their presence and expand their scope of activity. Its insurance companies, especially those in life assurance, want a stronger presence, he said.
Mr Chirac said French universities and research institutes welcomed thousands of young Chinese and should welcome even more and he called on French firms to train more Chinese staff.
Mr Chirac will open in Shanghai tomorrow the biggest French trade exhibition staged abroad.
