European aircraft giant Airbus is expecting a "large order" from Chinese airlines by early 2009, the company's chief executive officer Tom Enders said here on September 28. The Chinese aviation market "next year will still see strong growth and we are expecting another large order - maybe before the end of the year or Chinese New Year," Enders said at the opening of a new Airbus assembly line.
Airbus has already signed memorandums of understanding with Chinese carriers for 280 aircraft, Enders said at the inauguration, which was attended by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
The Airbus plant in the Chinese port city of Tianjin is the firm's first outside Europe and gives Airbus a foothold in a market hungry for new planes and hotly contested by its US rival Boeing.
Boeing makes aircraft components in China but has no assembly lines outside the United States. Enders said he hoped the plant - where the A320 jet, the group's family of single-aisle airliners, will be built - would be a "springboard for future development for Airbus in China and the region."
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