The China Aviation Supplies Import & Export Group Corporation (CASGC) signed a general purchase agreement with Boeing to buy seventy B737-700/800 aircraft in Beijing on Sunday, the biggest purchase agreement in China's aviation history.

The agreement unfolded a promising cooperation future between China and the United States in aviation and other fields. China's economy has developed rapidly in recent years, so has the aviation industry. In the next five years, China will need more aircraft, said Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice minister of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Sunday's purchase agreement will promote Sino-US economic and trade development. Since China bought the first Boeing aircraft B707 in the 1970s, the total Boeing aircraft bought so far reached 534, occupying two thirds of China's fleet, said Yang Guoqing, vice minister of the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China.

In the next 20 years, China needs over 3,000 new aircraft, being one of the biggest civil aviation markets in the world. In the past 33-year cooperation, Boeing has been devoted to helping China's airline companies in expanding their fleet and ensuring safety operation, said Robert Laird, vice president of the China Sales of Boeing Commercial Aircraft Company.

The catalog price of the aircraft purchase agreement was about US$4 billion and the planes will be delivered to eight leading Chinese airline companies between 2006 and 2008.

The Chinese airline companies are Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, Shandong Airlines, Hainan Airlines and Shenzhen Airlines.

(Xinhua News Agency November 20, 2005)