TIANJIN, July 29 (Xinhua) -- A ceremony was held on Friday to celebrate the delivery of the 2,000th aircraft leased by the Dongjiang Free Trade Port Zone (DFTP) in the northern Chinese municipality of Tianjin.
The 2,000th leased plane is an ARJ21 passenger aircraft developed by the state-owned plane-maker Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC).
After delivery, Hohhot in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region will be the aircraft's main operating base.
DFTP launched the aviation leasing business in 2009. It now has developed into the world's second-largest aviation leasing hub, after Ireland, in terms of the overall asset volume.
The ARJ21 jetliner is leased by the Agricultural Bank of China Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. and will be delivered to Air China for use.
A total of 2,000 aircraft delivered in Dongjiang covers more than 70 types of aircraft including passenger aircraft, cargo aircraft and general-utility helicopters, with a total asset value of 600 billion yuan (about 89 billion U.S. dollars), serving more than 40 domestic and foreign airlines.
"It means the aviation industry, as a high-end service industry, has a good development momentum in China, releasing a new signal for China's high-quality development," said Zhang Wei, a professor at Tianjin University, who published the financial leasing industry development index of Dongjiang.
Dongjiang is the core area of the Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone and a national demonstration zone for innovative leasing businesses.
Since the first aircraft was leased in Dongjiang in 2009, China has finished its first domestic aircraft leasing business. Before that, most of China's civil aircraft were imported via foreign leasing companies.
After more than 10 years of development, Dongjiang has taken the lead in developing different aircraft leasing models and served countries along the Belt and Road.
"The number of leased aircraft here accounts for about one-sixth of the global aircraft leasing market," said Yang Liu, director of the administrative committee of the zone.
By the end of 2021, the number of leased aircraft in Dongjiang had accounted for more than one-third of China's transport fleet, according to the local authority.
Through bonded aircraft leasing model, Chinese airlines have saved about 6 percent of direct rental costs compared with overseas financial leasing. Combined with other factors, tens of billions of yuan in costs have been saved.
