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China to lead global growth in air travel
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-12-16 13:46 China is expected to be the
world's fastest-growing market for air travel, as the world's airlines look for
an annual global growth of about six percent in passenger traffic over the next
four years.
The International Air Transport Association made the forecasts Wednesday. In
its year-end report, the association said the Chinese air-passenger market will
turn in an average annual growth of 12.5 percent until 2008. It stressed China
will generate significant long-haul business traffic as it leads global economic
expansion for the foreseeable future.
Around the world, the airline industry carried 14 percent more passengers
than last year, but still expects to post combined losses of nearly 5 billion US
dollars for 2004. Analysts say there's still a long way to go before the
industry totally recovers from the pains brought by the 2001 terror attacks and
SARS epidemic.
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