China's domestic aviation market to be world's largest within 10 years

BEIJING - China is expected to become the world's largest domestic aviation market in the next ten years, supported by urbanization, economic development and people's rising income, Airbus forecast on Wednesday.

The company specifically forecast that China will overtake the United States as the world's top domestic aviation market in terms of the number of passengers in 2023.

It predicted that the average annual growth rate for the domestic Chinese market will be 7.1 percent in the next 20 years with the average annual growth rate for international traffic from/to China's mainland at 8.1 percent between 2013 and 2023.

The country will need more than 5,300 new passenger aircraft and freighters from 2014 to 2033, with a total market value of $820 billion. This will represent 17 percent of the world's total demand for over 31,000 new aircraft in the next 20 years, the company forecast.