[LINK] "Airbus Draws Line at Giving China its Own Widebody Jet Plant"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg News reports on the tensions experienced by international airplane manufacturers like Airbus, as they try to do business with China without undermining their long-term positions.

Airbus Group SE drew a line on how far it’s prepared to extend jetliner production into China, saying it won’t help competitors develop aircraft, and that the country’s wide-body orders don’t justify building its most lucrative models there.

No talks have taken place about construction of twin-aisle jets such as the A330 and A350 in China, Fabrice Bregier, who heads Airbus’s planemaking arm, said at a briefing Tuesday in Tianjin, ahead of the opening of a completion shop that will put the finishing touches on wide-bodies flown in from Europe.

At a short ceremony Wednesday breaking ground on the finishing center, Bregier sat with officials from the Aviation Industry Corp. of China, the Tianjin municipality and China’s top economic planning agency against a bright red backdrop emblazoned with an image of the A330. Airbus will perform painting and cabin-fitting work for the wide-body jet at the new plant, as well as assembling four A320s a month at its existing Tianjin facility for narrow-body planes. Rival Boeing Co. also is looking to open a single-aisle finishing center in China.

The A330 completion center, the company’s first for wide-body jets outside of Europe, "marks a new milestone for Airbus’s international footprint and underlines the strong cooperation with our Chinese partners," Bregier said. "We will continue to look for future opportunities."