In anticipation of the soaring growth of China’s aviation industry, the government plans to build 500 more airports across the country by 2020.
The construction is expected to create a market valued at more than $153 billion for China’s general aviation industry, reported the Economic Times. The guidelines made by the central cabinet said the new gateways would be in major agricultural and forest regions and in more than half of the five scenic tourist spots in the next four years.
Along with the rise in airports is the number of aircraft to over 5,000 within the same year. It includes private planes and choppers. With the boost in number of aircraft and gateways, total yearly flying time is expected to rise to 2 million hours.
As of December 2015, China has about 300 airports, 281 enterprises and 1,874 aircraft. For the same period, total flying time reached 732,000 hours.
The building of new airports is part of a $723.8 billion spending plan over the next three years to boost China’s infrastructure, including new railways, highways, waterways and urban rail transits. Of the 303 infrastructure projects, 131 would begin this 2016, 92 in 2017 and 80 in 2018.
The rise in number of airports and aircraft should also be accompanied by training of 500,000 civil pilots to meet market demands by 2035, reported GB Times.