City's aviation industry aims to soar to new heights

Zhuhai's Airshow China is playing a key role in helping the city's aviation and aerospace industry take off.

The biennial China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, also known as Airshow China, is one of the world's top air shows. It was launched in Zhuhai in 1996, one year after Zhuhai Airport opened.

At that time, Zhuhai urgently hoped to improve the development environment, develop industries and achieve prosperity by building infrastructure. The city then planned a series of major construction projects, including ports, railways, expressways, Lingdingyang Bridge, power plants and water plants.

Airshow China has witnessed some of the country's achievements in the aviation and aerospace industry that have been made during four decades of reform and opening-up.

It also helped the city build a solid foundation in the aviation industry. A large number of high-quality aviation enterprises have established partnerships with Zhuhai, which helps the city's image to travel further across the world.

In recent years, China has been advancing the development of aviation and aerospace technology in cooperation with other countries. Airshow China serves as an important channel for China to communicate globally with the latest technologies.

It gives impetus for the country to become a major player in the global aviation and aerospace industry, an official said.

Zhuhai hopes to take the opportunity of Airshow China to highlight how Zhuhai's aviation and aerospace industry was developed from scratch. The event promotes industrial transformation and upgrading to boost innovation development in Zhuhai, an official said.

Now Zhuhai is accelerating the development of the Zhuhai Aviation Industrial Park, the only one of its kind in Guangdong province.

Since it opened in 2008, the park has carried out a number of pilot projects, becoming an "experimental zone" for the country's policy innovation.

One typical innovation is the air service station, which was launched in 2014.

As the first of its kind in China, the station provides a package of flight services from planning, intelligence and meteorology to rescue.

In 2014, the first low-altitude flight route in China - Zhuhai-Yangjiang-Luoding - was opened. It was considered a major breakthrough in China's low-altitude airspace management reform.

After 11 years of development, the park has gathered a number of promising high-tech companies across the whole industrial chain. They range from research and manufacturing to maintenance, operation and training.

A series of breakthroughs have been made in Zhuhai, such as the AG600, the world's largest amphibious aircraft and the sensing satellite constellation project Zhuhai-1.

Officials said the local government is exploring more effective ways to strengthen connections between industrial partners and Airshow China to drive economic growth in Zhuhai.