China’s newly formed helicopter company will be based in Tianjin, where the city government will take 31 percent of the capital in a first step toward separating the rotary-wing business from national aircraft-making conglomerate Avic. Tianjin also will host a new production line with which the company will build light civilian helicopters, part of a range of initiatives that are turning the city, a big port close to Beijing, into a globally important aerospace center.

Radical reorganization of the Chinese aerospace industry has created an array of specialist companies that policy makers hope will have the focus needed to succeed in the international market. The former twin conglomerates Avic 1 and Avic 2 have been merged back together as Avic. But the key to the reform is the subsequent parceling of their many factories and research institutes into five specialist aerospace companies plus the so-called Defense Div., itself a nascent integrated military contractor.

Singapore Technologies Aerospace, apparently fearless of the worsening economic slowdown, is pushing ahead with expansion and hiring plans for its global maintenance, repair and overhaul operation. ST Aero is even open to further expansion through acquisitions, which it thinks should become cheaper as excess capacity piles up in North America and Europe. Development of unannounced new facilities, probably in Asia, is also in the cards.