Some aircraft makers have gone further to set up local production, creating more high-tech jobs in China.
Diamond Aircraft of Austria, a single-engine plane maker, has had a joint venture in China since 2005. "Having a local production base in China is an advantage as we can reach markets we couldn't access before," said Gernot Brabner, executive general manager of Binao-Diamond Aircraft of Shandong.
"We've even considered increasing our capacity from 60 aircraft to 100 a year from next year."
Cessna Aircraft signed agreements this year to join the government of Chengdu, in Sichuan province, and the State-owned Aviation Industry Corp of China in a joint venture to produce mid-sized business jets and possibly other new models in the future.
Many more joint ventures are expected to mushroom in China, in a similar path that the auto industry took, experts say.
For Bingham, of Piaggio Aero, the lack of infrastructure hold challenges for the industry in the short term.
"But the Chinese government has committed so much to developing this sector, and they have realized that they are way behind on aviation. General aviation is going to develop in the typical Chinese way. After being the last, they intend to be the first."
mengjing@chinadaily.com.cn
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