China signed a framework document on Monday with European aircraft maker Airbus for an order for 150 mid-range planes worth nearly 10 billion dollars during a visit by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

The contract, signed by Airbus chief executive Gustav Humbert and the president of the China Aviation Supplies Import and Export Group, Li Hai, covers aircraft from Airbus's A320 family of single-aisle planes, which typically seat up to 185 passengers.

The deal was signed in the presence of Wen Jiabao and his French counterpart Dominique de Villepin.

The A320 family of single-aisle jets comprises four aircraft capable of seating 107 to 185 passengers. The catalogue price of each A320 is 64.5 million dollars.

Airbus, owned 80-percent by the European Aeronautic, Defence and Space (EADS) Company and 20 percent by Britain's BAE Systems, is seeking to topple US rival Boeing's dominance of the Chinese civil aviation sector by clawing its way up to a 50 percent market share.

It currently has only around a third compared to Boeing's 60 percent.

Boeing last month notched up firm orders for 70 of its mid-range planes, the 737s, and options for another 80 during a visit to China by US President George W. Bush.

China said it would be buying between 1,800 and 2,700 planes from the two companies, which are the world's leading commercial airline manufacturers, over the next two decades.

On Sunday afternoon, Wen visited Airbus' headquarters in Toulouse, southwestern France, and attended the signing ceremony of a memorandum of understanding between the European aircraft maker and the National Development and Reform Commission of China.

The memorandum, which aims for "a further upgrade of the cooperation" between China's civil aviation industry and Airbus, includes the "possibility" of building an assembly plant for mid-range Airbus planes in China.

Wen, accompanied by a 70-member delegation, is on a four-day visit to France, the first leg of a European tour which will also take him to Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Portugal.

On Monday morning, Wen met French President Jacques Chirac. Both leaders spoke highly of the bilateral relations and reached a wide range of understanding on important strategic issues between the two countries. Wen also met with French national assembly speaker Jean-Louis Debre on relations between their two countries.

Wen will leave France on Wednesday.

(Xinhua News Agency December 6, 2005)