Shanghai plans to buy Boeings

SHANGHAI Airlines, the regional carrier owned by China's biggest municipality, plans to acquire 15 Boeing airliners by 2000, the New China News Agency said yesterday.

A consortium made up of six Shanghai banks extended a US$22 million loan on Thursday for the purchase of the US-built jets, the state-run news agency said.

By the end of the decade, Shanghai Airlines' fleet will include 10 Boeing 757-200s and five wide-bodied Boeing 767-200s, it added. Two of the new 757's will go into service this year.

Shanghai, home to 15 million people and a new showcase for China's economic reforms, aspires to be a major new aviation crossroads in East Asia in the coming years.