China, France sign 9 cooperation documents
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-06-13 08:38

China agreed Friday to buy 20 Airbus planes and a French satellite in two contracts signed in French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's Matignon Palace.

At the signing ceremony, seven other technical cooperation agreements were also inked, with the presence of Raffarin and visiting Chinese Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan after their talks.

The deals for 20 Airbus A330-200 planes and the French-made Alcatel television satellite are valued at more than US$2 billion, according to industrial sources.

The 20 Airbus jumbo jets are scheduled to be delivered to China from the first quarter of 2006.

Pascale Sourisse, president of Alcatel Space, a subsidiary of the French telecommunications group Alcatel, said his company had agreed to sell a satellite to Chinasat, a Chinese satellite operator preparing for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

The Electricity of France signed with a Chinese company a letter of intent concerning technical cooperation in building a nuclear power plant in southern China's Guangdong province.

Other deals signed in the ceremony included a technology transfer program of high-speed electric trains between French engineering group Alstom and China's Datong Electric Locomotive Company.

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