China to invest billions in building new airports this year

BEIJING: China will pump in nearly $12 billion this year on the construction of civil aviation infrastructure, especially airports, as it looks to halt the slowdown of the world's second largest economy with big ticket investments.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China said it will step up construction of important new airports, including those in Beijing, Chengdu, Qingdao, Xiamen and Dalian.

Eleven key infrastructure projects and 52 upgrades or expansion work on civil aviation facilities will be started this year, it said in a statement.

China is to invest about 77 billion yuan (about $11.7 billion) this year on the construction of civil aviation infrastructure, especially airports, the statement said.

China has been stepping up investments to further improve its well developed infrastructure to meet the demands for future to boost economy which continues to slowdown and slipped below seven per cent in the third quarter last year.

The administration said Beijing's second international airport, the largest construction project in Chinese civil aviation history, is progressing well.

The total cost of the Beijing's new airport was estimated to be $13.1 billion.

Work on the terminal and air traffic control facilities began in September and construction of support facilities is expected to start in June.

The airport is scheduled to be completed in June 2019 and become operational in December that year. The civil aviation agency will also work with the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planner, to publish a blueprint this year on the locations of new civil airports to be built before 2030, it said.

Dong Zhiyi, a deputy director at the administration, has said China plans to build 66 new civil airports in the next five years, taking the number of such airports on the Chinese mainland to 272 from 206.

Demand has been rising for air travel, spurring the development of more airports. Chinese travellers made more than 4 billion trips to domestic destinations last year. They also made 120 million trips abroad, an increase of 16 per cent year-on-year, according to National Tourism Administration.

The civil aviation administration said Chinese made 440 million trips by air last year and predicted that the figure could rise to 485 million this year.

Jiang Yiyi, director of the China Tourism Academy's International Tourism Development Institute, expects more than 130 million outbound trips to be made by the Chinese this year, a year-on-year rise of 10 per cent.

To satisfy the increasing demand for overseas trips, in addition to building new airports, the administration plans to sharply increase the number of international air routes in China.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China will help domestic and foreign airlines to open more than 200 new international routes this year, its director Li Jiaxiang said.