Airbus (EPA:AIR) has signed a deal to sell 140 of its commercial jets to China, in a deal worth around $22.8 billion.
Airbus announced the agreement with the state-run China Aviation Supplies Holding Company on Wednesday, with Airbus chief executive Tom Enders describing it as “one of the biggest contracts signed in a long time by Airbus”.
China is buying 100 of the A320 planes and 40 of the A350 XWB aircraft, with Enders saying that he expected up to 50 percent of the A320 family planes to come from the Airbus final assembly line in China.
The agreement comes after Airbus made a conscious move to focus on the region, which Enders says is paying off:
“In the mid-1990s we had a market share (in China) of 5 to 6 percent. Twenty years later we have around 50 percent – we really put our foot on the gas.”
The deal was signed today in Berlin, watched by Chinese president Xi Jinping and Germany’s Angela Merkel.
Shares in Airbus are currently trading up 0.83 percent on the news, at 73.31 (1523GMT).