Luxury cars and fancy yachts are no longer the epitome of rich people's desires. The latest on the list is a plane for China's growing legion of the rich.

One of the growing number of the wealthy in the country has ordered three Airbus corporate jetliners (ACJs) totalling at least 1.3 billion yuan (US$163 million), according to officials from Airbus China.

Deliveries of the ACJs will start in 2006, a press release from the European aircraft giant said, but would not disclose the name of the customer or whether he is linked to any enterprise.

The ACJ Family is derived from Airbus A319, the catalogue price of which ranges from US$54.4 million to US$66.5 million.

Usually, corporate aircraft are used exclusively by a company, or for government or business leaders.

Whether for business or pleasure, manufacturers think private or business aviation in China is set to take off in a big way.

"Over the next few years, we anticipate steady growth in the demand of business jets as more companies need fast transportation for their business," a press official from Airbus China told China Daily.

In fact, the number of Chinese who can afford their own aircraft is growing, said Yang Xiaonong, the executive president of China General Aviation Net, a Changsha-based aviation business website in central China's Hunan Province.

Yang's company offers consultation services on aircraft procurement. He said some entrepreneurs feel it is worthwhile to spend millions of dollars on a business jet to save time and energy.

Early this year, an entrepreneur in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, bought a plane called "No 1 Premier" from Raytheon Company of the United States at a price tag of US$ 8million.

Insiders forecast China's business jet market will hit over US$9 billion within 10 years, with the number of business or private jets expected to rise from 20 to more than 600.

In August, when the first Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition was held in Shanghai, world-famous business jet producers including Raytheon, Dassault, Gulfstream and Bombardier flocked to the metropolis to seek business opportunities, but no deal was sealed then.

(China Daily November 23, 2005)