Engine overhaul shop MTU Maintenance Zhuhai, already making money only four years after opening in southern China, is likely to expand within three years and handsomely boost profits. The 50-50 joint venture between Germany’s MTU Aero Engines GmbH. and China Southern Airlines Co. Ltd. needs very little new equipment to lift its capacity from 200-220 engine shop visits a year to 300, and can stretch output further to 350 with more workers, says President and CEO Walter Strakosch.

China will demand many more aircraft over the coming 20 years than Boeing expected a year ago, according to the manufacturer’s latest forecast. Average annual traffic growth of 8.8% will drive Chinese purchases of 3,400 new aircraft worth $340 billion from 2007 to 2026, Boeing says. Demand forecasts routinely creep up from year to year as the period under review edges further out, but the latest figures from Boeing show a radical revision to its outlook. The unit forecast has risen by 18% from last year and the value forecast by 21%.

Harbin Aircraft will renew its push into the light transport market with an aircraft whose design has advanced the firm’s skill in computational fluid dynamics. Part of a broad initiative to develop a range of Chinese commercial aircraft that meet the standards of Western customers, the Y12F turboprop shows the great leap in efficiency that industry here has been able to achieve since the development of the original Y12 in the early 1980s.