Boeing sets 300 plane order, plant with China

The newspaper, which is run by the official news agency Xinhua, gave few details – including who had put the proposal forward – but said an update could be expected as early as this week.

U.S. aerospace giant Boeing has reached deals with Chinese firms to sell 300 aircraft and open a completion centre in the Asian country, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported, as President Xi Jinping began his first state visit to the United States. Boeing declined to say how numerous planes had been previously ordered, and how that would affect the actual value of the deal.

Boeing said it plans to team with state-controlled Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China, or Comac, in building an aircraft-completion center in China for 737 jets.

“China’s rapidly growing aviation market plays a crucial role in our current and future success”, Boeing chairman Jim McNerney said in a statement last week. Boeing said on Tuesday it doesn’t expect to lay off or reduce staff related to the 737 because of the new factory in China.

It represents a step-up in Boeing’s competition in China with European rival Airbus, which already has a manufacturing presence there.

Ray Conner, chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a memo to employees Tuesday that it will not result in layoffs at its Washington state plant, Bloomberg News said.

“Expectations are appropriately low”, he said, adding that some US companies have been frustrated with the pace of economic reform in China.

Boeing listed orders as of August. 31 for 157 jets designated for Chinese customers, although analysts said numerous other existing orders from China are included among “unidentified” customers in its total backlog of 5,710 planes. COMAC is already developing a Chinese narrow-body, the C919, as well as a smaller regional jet, the ARJ21, in commercial hub Shanghai.

China’s air-travel market has continued to grow despite the cooling of the broader economy, with analysts forecasting it needs several hundred additional planes a year to keep up with demand.

The buyers are China’s ICBC Financial Leasing, China Aviation Supplies, and China Development Bank Leasing.

Airbus opened its first assembly line outside of Europe in 2008 with a Tianjin facility that turns out four A320 aircraft per month.