Airbus SAS plans to buy as much as $1 billion of components from China by 2020, bolstering the procurement from last year's $70 million, the chief executive of the world's largest aircraft maker said.

"We're already in a steep first year to increase our sourcing," Airbus Chief Executive Officer Tom Enders said in a television interview before opening the company's A320 assembly in eastern China's Tianjin city. "In two years, we'll triple it, double it again in three, four or five years later."

Toulouse, France-based Airbus is making China as important as the U.S., Enders said yesterday, seeking to win more orders in the world's second-largest aviation market. Airbus predicts China has a need for up to 3,000 planes in the next 20 years as surging demand for seats spurs the country's airlines to expand.

About 96 percent of Airbus's employment and 75 percent of its procurement is in Europe, while the company is selling the planes all over the world.

"We have to share it," Enders said. "We can't keep it all in Europe or the U.S."

Airbus officially began production of A320 aircraft at its factory in China today. The plane maker in June started shipping segments to be assembled to the Tianjin plant, its first assembly line outside Europe.

"We intend to invest into important markets like the Chinese," Enders said. "We want to firmly establish ourselves here."

Delivery of planes made at the factory in Tianjin, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southeast of Beijing, is due to start in the summer of 2009.

Cost Savings

Airbus's profitability is under pressure from the euro's strength against the U.S. dollar, which squeezes the margins between revenue from planes sold in the U.S. currency and euro- denominated production costs.

European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., parent of Airbus, will shift work to non-European countries as it seeks 1 billion euros ($1.46 billion) in cost-savings through 2012, two-thirds from its plane-making unit, Airbus.

Under the extended cost-saving plan, Airbus is required to save 650 million euros and other EADS units about 350 million euros, partly by moving engineering and manufacturing outside Europe.

EADS's existing Power8 program is designed to save 2.1 billion euros by 2010.

Airbus has forecast a 50 percent increase in plane output between 2007 and 2011. The company is already boosting A320 production to 40 a month by 2010 from about 37 now.