China's largest aerospace company plans to produce sample engine parts for the country's jumbo jet project in 2017 and 2018 in Shanghai's Nanhui District.

The Aviation Industry Corp of China and the Shanghai government signed a deal in November to form a venture in the Lingang Development Zone in southeastern Nanhui to design and make aircraft engines for plane makers. The 6 billion yuan (US$875.8 million) venture will mainly focus on engine production for commercial flights, including engines for China's first 150-seat passenger plane.

The Nanhui government said yesterday that the venture would produce sample engines in 2017 and 2018.

The venture is part of a cooperation between AVIC and the local government, which set up an aviation-industry base in Nanhui. Nanhui is also home to the assembly base of the country's 150-seat jumbo jet, developed by Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, maker of the country's first regional ARJ21 jet.

The district has become a key zone for Shanghai's cargo development, with easy access to Pudong International Airport and Yangshan Deep Water Port.

The Yangshan port handled 8.3 million 20-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) this year and the volume is expected to nearly double to 15 million TEUs in 2010 when 30 berths are completed.

Passenger volume at Pudong airport will reach 80 million in 2010, compared to 29 million last year, when its third terminal is finished, and cargo volume will reach 4.5 million tons from last year's 2.5 million.

The establishment of an international shipping center in Shanghai spurred Nanhui's gross domestic product to 54.8 billion yuan this year, up 20.2 percent from a year earlier.

Its fixed-asset investments reached 38 billion yuan in the period and it attracted US$520 million of foreign-contracted foreign investments.

The district, with a population of 1.2 million population, also said its fiscal income was 5.2 billion yuan this year from 2.6 billion yuan in 2005.

(Shanghai Daily December 24, 2008)