Watch out Boeing, Airbus … here comes China

Published 9:05 am Sunday, May 11, 2008

China has launched a company to build large commercial jets in an effort to make it less reliant on the Boeing Co. and Airbus.

The government of China announced today the formation of China Commercial Aircraft with an investment of $2.7 billion. The central government, the Shanghai government and the country’s two aviation companies, AVIC I and AVIC II, are the major stakeholders.

“This is the dream of several generations and we will finally realize it,” Premier Wen Jiabao said, according to a Bloomberg report. “We should rely on ourselves to build the large planes’ main technologies, materials and engines.”

You can read more on this from Reuters or the Associated Press.