CAAC Proposes to Build Air Silk Road

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) is looking into plans to build an air Silk Road and calling on airlines to step up their "going out" efforts and develop international networks to build key nodes on this new Silk Road.

In this connection, CAAC will endeavour to do a good job in planning the development of the aviation industry around the national development strategy and strive to better integrate the aviation industry with economic and social development. A new system of comprehensive airport planning with emphasis on the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region will be established to promote the integration of the Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei airports and speed up the construction of the new Beijing Airport. Key nodes on the air Silk Road will be built around the implementation of the "One Belt, One Road" strategy. In the development of the Yangtze Economic Belt, efforts will be made to optimise the distribution of city airport clusters with distinct functional positioning for each airport in order to achieve a win-win pattern of mutually supporting city airports in the service of regional economic development. On the strategy of new-style urbanisation, efforts will be made to support the development of the central and western regions and the construction of feeder airports in order to achieve a development pattern with division of labour and cooperation between regional hubs and small and medium-sized airports. CAAC will invest Rmb500 billion in the construction of 193 large and medium-sized aviation projects.

CAAC called on airlines to step up their "going out" efforts and develop big aviation corporations with large networks and strong international competitiveness. Efforts will be made to improve the function of large airports as international hubs and build global networks of international routes with good connectivity. Large airports such as the Beijing Airport, Shanghai Airport and Guangzhou Airport will concentrate on playing their role as international and transit hubs and aviation logistics companies will make their contributions in the development of international aviation logistics centres. International aviation transport policies will be optimised to support Chinese aviation enterprises in "flying out". CAAC will propose the "four (cooperation) mechanisms" to countries along the "Belt and Road" and will extend these "four mechanisms" to other countries and regions in a timely manner while steadily advancing the "China-Africa Regional Aviation Cooperation Plan".