CAAC to Invest 100 billion Yuan to Help Market 2009

On January 6th, 2009 Yang Guoqing, the Vice Minister of the CAAC, during the National Civil Aviation Working Conference in Beijing said that, since the whole industry is in an economic slowdown, that CAAC investment will be increased in 2009. The total investment of the civil aviation’s fixed assets will be between 80 billion to 100 billion Yuan in 2009, up 33% from last year. In 2008, the total investment of the civil aviation’s fixed assets was 36 billion Yuan. There are the 22 key construction projects in 2009, including the 3 to-be-finished projects of the Tianjin Binhai Airport Flight Zone Expansion, Shanghai Hongqiao Airport Expansion, Urumqi Diwopu Airport Expansion; along with the 9 ongoing projects of Kunming New Airport, Hefei New Airport, etc.; and 10 new projects including the Guangzhou Baiyun Airport Expansion, Shenzhen Anbao Airport Expansion, etc. Besides construction of infrastructure, Yang Guoqing also said that airport fees in the latter half of 2008 and the first half of 2009 will be returned to the airlines. The highest standard of airport fees in the first half of 2009 will be the benchmark price, and the landing fees will remain the same. Some of the small and medium airports which already waived landing fees to the airlines will be compensated directly. Coordinating with the other states’ departments, these moves will adjust international and domestic aviation fuel purchasing costs and quantities to more reasonable levels.