China will need over 7,400 new passenger and freight aircraft between 2018 and 2037, according to Airbus’s latest Global Market Forecast.

This represents more than 19% of the world’s total demand for new aircraft — over 37,400 — in the next 20 years.

Christian Scherer, chief commercial officer at Airbus (www.airbus.com), said: “China is one of the most powerful growth engines of global air transport, and it will become the world’s number-one aviation market in the very near future.

“Airbus’s share of the mainland in-service fleet in China now exceeds incumbent and competing aircraft types and keeps growing, thanks to our cost-effective new-generation products.

“In parallel, the total value of our industrial co-operation with the Chinese aviation industry is growing towards $1 billion by 2020.”

Domestic passenger air traffic in China has grown fourfold over the last 10 years and is expected to become the world’s largest traffic flow in the next 10 years, while international traffic from/to China has almost doubled over the last 10 years.