China's top legislature
should accelerate the introduction of an aviation law to ensure the
industry can enjoy sound development and rapid growth, lawmakers
suggested.
"An aviation industry is one of the defining factors
that determine the world ranking of a country and represents the level
of the country's science and technology, industrial capability and
military power," said Fan Huitao, a deputy to the 12th National People's
Congress and chief designer at the China Airborne Missile Academy.
"According to
research findings, each percentage increase in the sales volume of
aircraft will in turn produce a 0.7 percentage rise in the national
economy, and a high-tech aviation company could benefit 15 other
companies in related industries," he told China Daily on the sidelines
of the ongoing annual session of the NPC in Beijing.
Fan's
academy is one of China's top defense technology research institutes and
belongs to Aviation Industry Corp of China, the nation's biggest
aircraft manufacturer.
During the annual session of the national
legislature in 2008, deputies from the aviation sector submitted a
proposal for an aviation law, he said.
"However, they were told conditions had not matured enough for such a law to be made at that time."
He
noted almost every country that has a strong aviation industry has
published laws on the sector, citing the General Aviation Revitalization
Act of 1994 in the United States and the Brazilian Aeronautical Code as
examples of legislation boosting the industry's rapid development.
The
scrapping of the ambitious Y-10 project, China's first attempt to
develop an indigenous, large jetliner, was caused by divergence between
civil aviation authorities and the aircraft manufacturing sector, and
the absence of an aviation law, said Hong Jiansheng, another deputy and a
senior executive at the AVIC Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group.
"Without
a national law regulating the aviation industry, a haphazard decision
or shifts in policies will have a huge effect on the industry and slow
its development."
The country's air traffic control authorities
have drafted an aviation law, but related government departments are
still debating a series of issues such as which department should
initiate the legislation and the air traffic management mechanism,
leading to the legislation being stalled, Legal Daily reported in
January.
"We call on the government to treat the aviation
industry as a strategically important sector by introducing the aviation
law, and we hope the top legislature could find a place for the law in
its legislative agenda," said Fan.
In addition to the legislative
proposal, lawmakers from the aviation sector also urged the central
government to give more support and favorable policies to State-owned
defense technology enterprises that are located in remote,
underdeveloped areas and haunted with financial difficulties.
During
the climax of the Cold War, China constructed or relocated more than
1,100 defense technology institutes and plants to remote, inland
regions, and those institutes and plants had made remarkable
contributions to the nation's national defense through the sacrifice and
devotion of millions of researchers and workers, said Ma Yongsheng, an
NPC deputy and chairman of AVIC Aerospace.
"Many such enterprises
have been struggling with financial problems, a continuing brain drain
as well as heavy burdens from a vast group of retirees and their
healthcare costs," he said, noting there are more than 100,000 workers
and retirees in about 50 State-owned aviation companies in Guizhou
province, and just paying their incomes has inflicted colossal costs for
those companies.
"Therefore, we deputies from State-owned
defense enterprises submitted a proposal calling for favorable tax and
loan policies, special subsidies and measures for attracting talent."
Source: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn