O-Bay to purchase 100 regional Russian aircraft

If the assembly line is located in Zhengzhou, it will be the third city in China assembling aircraft with more than 100 seats, after Tianjin and Shanghai.

However, there is still some uncertainty that may stop the program from going ahead.

"Such a large program needs to be approved by the State governments," said Gao Yuanyang, director of the General Aviation Industry Research Center at Beihang University in Beijing.

It is not clear whether the State government will approve it because the city does not have the necessary industrial foundation and professional human resources, he said, despite the local government being passionate about the aviation industry.

If the SSJ-100 is built in China, the Chinese State-owned airplane manufacturer will have a direct rival: Commercial Aircraft Corp of China Ltd is working on the ARJ-21, a regional aircraft with 70 to 90 seats.

Nonetheless, Gao said it is a good time for Chinese enterprises to bring production lines to China from overseas manufacturers because some of them suffered substantially during the financial crises of recent years.

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