"The airshow, scheduled November 6-12, provides enormous opportunities for us to expand international co-operation and exports, which are two of the major ways of developing our general-use aircraft," said Zhang Yanzhong, general manager of the corporation.

The domestic general aviation industry lags behind Western countries in such aspects as aero-engine and aero-electronics, Zhang said.

Development of general-use aircraft products is risky and requires high-technology components and a large amount of money, he said.

"The country will have to expand co-operation with foreign companies to improve the technical level of its aviation products," the manager said.

The five-seat EC120 helicopter, a joint programme between China, France and Singapore, has proven to be a successful co-operation, Zhang said.

"We will take every possibility to expand such co-operation," he said. "We will also actively explore the international market by participating in air shows and doing demonstration flights."

"While keeping a close eye on the domestic market, we need to occupy a certain market share on the international market," Zhang added.

Chi Yaozong, deputy general manager of the China Aviation Industry Corporation II said his corporation would strive to export 200 aircraft in the next five years.

"The aircraft produced by our corporation have their own advantages, because most of them are of medium or small size," Chi said.

Corporation II planes are usually lower priced and can avoid competition from large aircraft companies in Western countries.

The Harbin Airplane Industrial Corporation, one of the corporation's aircraft firms, recently delivered two Zhi-9 helicopters to the Republic of Mali.

On December 23, 1999, the China National Aero-Technical Import and Export Corp signed a contract with Harbin to purchase 100 Yun-12 aircraft for export.

The same day, the Import and Export Corp signed another major contract with the Egyptian Defence Department to export 80 K-8E trainers and its production line worth US$347.4 million.

Corporation II has so far exported more than 360 aircraft to 22 countries including the Sudan, Pakistan, Canada and the United States, Chi said.

The prospects for the co-operation's aircraft exports are rosy, he said.

As one of China's top 10 military industry enterprises, Corporation II has 54 large and medium-sized firms and 210,000 staff, with total assets of 31.5 billion yuan (US$3.8 billion).

(China Daily 11/5/2000)