AVIC I Commercial Aircraft Co. revealed its ambition to explore the US as a potential market for its ARJ21 regional jet, with VP Chen Jin noting that a new FAA office in Shanghai, established last month, will help CAAC to conduct airworthiness certification of the aircraft this October.

ACAC to date has received 71 domestic orders for the ARJ21 and it is ramping up its international marketing. It expects to sell the aircraft elsewhere in Asia, in Africa and in South America, the Associated Press reported. The first ARJ21 is scheduled to come off the assembly line by year end and ACAC hopes to involve the public in selecting an appropriate Chinese name for it.

Industry analysts have pointed out that the program, if successful, will lay a solid technological foundation for the larger commercial aircraft China plans to manufacture by 2020.

AVIC I said it has launched market research on a 105-seat ARJ21-900, an extended version of the 90-seat -700. Next year it will start full-scale design work on the -900 and plans a first flight in 2010. "We are really working hard on it now and we won't rule out the possibility that the stretched version will be reconfigured into a cargo aircraft or a business jet in the future," Vice MD Li Yuhai said.

Shanghai Aircraft, where ARJ21s are being assembled, will finish the first phase of its expansion project at the end of this year and aims to have annual production capability of 11 aircraft by 2010 and 30 after 2011. It is estimated that China will need 600 regional aircraft in the next 20 years.