Aviation Ties Seen Boosting U.S., China Economies
The U.S. can create tens of thousands of well-paying manufacturing jobs by providing the airplanes and services needed to help China meet its civil aviation growth needs, in the view of industry executives and officials attending the three-day U.S.-China Aviation Summit in Washington D.C.
“Ultimately, our success helping China meet its aerospace goals will mean more jobs here at home,” said Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce Rebecca Blank in her Monday’s keynote speech at Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
In 2010 the aerospace industry accounted for nearly $78 billion of total U.S. exports of $1.84 trillion, with its workers earning 47 percent more than other manufacturing workers, Blank said.
“Clearly, we would like to see the aerospace workforce grow,” she said. ”And it will if the United States and China work more closely together.”
On the other side is the virtually limitless potential for growth in China’s aviation industry.
“We can see it clearly that China lags far behind the U.S. [in the aviation industry],” said Xia Xinghua, deputy chief of Civic Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
With a population of 1.3 billion, China has more than four times the population of the U.S., but its air passenger traffic was only one-third of the U.S.‘s, and it had only one-fifth the commercial aircraft and one-third the number of public airports of the U.S. China’s 1,010 general aviation aircraft logged only 368,000 hours in 2010 compared with 23.3 million logged b the U.S.‘s 230,000 aircraft.
“As recently as seven years ago, China was the 10th largest U.S. aerospace export market, behind Brazil, (South) Korea and the Netherlands,” said Blank. “Yes, the Netherlands.
“Last year, fueled by China’s enormous demand for civil aircraft, pilot training, airport and air traffic management equipment — products and services in which the U.S. is very competitive — China was second only to France.”
By 2015 the annual average growth rate of China’s civil aviation miles will be 13 percent, passenger traffic 11 percent, and cargo and mail volume 10 percent, according to the China Civil Aviation 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) unveiled in April.
“China-U.S. air transportation is our largest international market so far,” said CAAC’s Xia.
China is the biggest buyer of Boeing planes, with China’s airlines flying 820 or 49 percent of its total transportation planes.
In 2004 the US Trade and Development Agency (USDA) launched the US-China Aviation Cooperation Program to promote cooperation between the US and Chinese aviation sectors by working with 50 US private sector members and four public partners, including the Federal Aviation Administration and CAAC.
These programs have generated over $3.8 billion in exports of US goods and services to China while promoting cooperation in aviation safety, standards, air traffic management, airspace liberalization, general aviation, aviation market development and environmental best practices through workshops and training programs.
The U.S. aviation industry has been urging China to provide more access to passenger traffic markets and boost flights between the two countries.
“The Chinese aviation cargo market is fully open to the United States and our passenger traffic market will be open to foreign companies step by step, according to our own abilities and plans,” said Xia.