Published by: THE WORLD UYGHUR NETWORK NEWS May 20, 1997

Rome ANSA (Ansamail database version), 05/15/97

(ANSA) -- Beijing, May 15 -- A three-way consortium formed by Alenia

and its British and French equivalents today signed a contract to

supply five of its highly successful ATR- 72 regional carriers to

Xinjiang Airlines in western China, with an option for five more. The

contract is expected to be worth some 70 million dollars to the AIR

(Air International Regional) consortium, set up three years ago by

Alenia, Aerospatiale and British Aerospace.

Separately, Alenia alone signed a contract to co-produce ATR-72

fuselages at Xian, in the east-central Shanxi region. The signing

ceremony was attended by Italian Transport Minister Claudio Burlando

and Italian Ambassador to China Alessandro Quaroni. Alenia's

ground-control subsidiary Alenia Radar e Sistemi ATC was the first

company in the group to break into the highly competitive Chinese

market at the beginning of the Eighties, and has now installed more

than 40 systems at major airports around the country.

China expects its civil aviation sector to grow by 13 percent each year

to the end of the century. Air traffic increased by an average 16.3

percent a year between 1994 and 1996. The Chinese Government's current

five-year plan, which runs until 2000, envisages the acquisition of 240

planes, half of which have already been ordered. Most of them will be

made by Boeing of the United States and by Airbus, which currently hold

shares of 70 and 15 percent in the Chinese market.