China is gunning to broaden its military and civilian aircraft market in Africa by setting up new infrastructures, as reported by the Washington-based Defense News.
The projects include the establishment of an aviation training center, two maintenance and support hubs, two regional marketing headquarters, and three spare-parts warehouses.
The training center will be located in South Africa while the maintenance and support offices will be built in the Republic of Congo and Tanzania, according to Zhang Guangjian, the general manager of International Aero Department, a state-run Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) subsidiary.
Zhang also revealed that the warehouses will be constructed at Congo Brazzaville, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
"Compared with Western counterparts, our aircraft have proven more suitable for operations in Africa because they are more adaptable to tough use and bad infrastructure," Zhang said in an interview, highlighting the significance of the African market expansion initiative.
"They have enabled our African friends to operate good aircraft at an affordable cost," the general manager added.
According to AVIC, at least 80 percent of the African air forces' trainer aircraft fleet are made in China. Several African nations also operate 24 variants of the Y-12 turbo-prop trainer aircraft, which was produced by China Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corp.
Another AVIC subsidiary, Hongdu Aviation Industry Corp. has managed to sell six L-15 trainer jets to Zambia, and another 12 units to a yet unnamed African country.
The China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corp. also revealed it has sold 35 variants of its Karakorum K-8 light attack and trainer aircraft to Sudan, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Zambia.