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Direct Ningxia-HK flight kicks off

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-02-19 16:25

Northwest China's Ningxia region launched on Monday its first direct flight to Hong Kong, marking the official opening of the airport in the region's capital to overseas flights.

The charter flight with more than 130 passengers aboard took off at 10:30 am Monday from Hedong Airport in Yinchuan, to land in Hong Kong at 1:25 pm.

A Boeing 737-300 airliner from China Eastern Airlines' Wuhan Branch undertook the flight, which returns at 2:25 pm from Hong Kong and land in Yinchuan at 5:35 pm.

The first flight marked a new page in the region's opening-up to the outside, said Hei Liangjie, director of Ningxia Commerce Department.

Hedong Airport won approval to open overseas flights from the State Council in April 2005, but the region's frontier guards team was established last year for inspection work at the airport.

Regular Yinchuan-Hong Kong direct flights will be officially begin in April, when there will be two flights a week from Ningxia to Hong Kong. Cargo flights from Yinchuan to Russia and Central Asian countries are also in preparation.

A Hui autonomous region covering 66,000 square kilometers, agricultural Ningxia has a population of 5.7 million. Its foreign trade volume was 1.4 billion US dollars last year, accounting for 1.5 percent of the region's gross domestic product of 70 billion yuan (8.9 billion US dollars).