The Shannon-based aircraft engine leasing company, Shannon Engine Support Limited, formally opened a representative office in Beijing yesterday, in what the Irish Ambassador to Beijing called a significant extension of economic and commercial relations between Ireland China.
Such links were developing very rapidly, Mr Declan Connolly told a banquet hosted by the company for representatives of Chinese airline companies. Ireland was becoming known in China as "an attractive source of goods and supplies for the development of the Chinese economy", he said.
Shannon Engine Support managing director Mr Heber McMahon said the expansion coincided with the development of aviation in China from a relatively small base to a major world industry.
The company, which guarantees spare engines within 24 hours for aircraft which develop engine trouble, was founded in 1988 as a joint-venture between GPA and CFM International, the manufacturer of the world's most successful civil aircraft engine, the CFM56.
Variants of this engine power all Boeing 737 models manufactured since the mid-1980s (300 series and up), about 50 per cent of all the Airbus A320 family and all A340 aircraft.
The company entered the China market in 1990 when it signed an agreement with China Southern Airlines. However, it began its major expansion in China only after 1996 when CFM International bought out the GPA shareholding, making it a wholly-owned CFMI subsidiary.
Mr Liam Meade, vice-president (marketing), made 45 trips to China in the last five years. The company now has 10 client airlines: China Southern, Air China, Xinhua Airlines, Shandong Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Wuhan Airlines, China Southwest Airlines, Hainan Airlines and Shanghai Airlines.
The company anticipates revenues of $6.4 million this year from its operation in China, which involves maintaining a supply of 16 spare engines in bonded warehouses in Beijing and Guangzhou with a total value of $67.8 million.
It currently obtains 21 per cent of its revenues from China where it maintains 37 per cent of its engines. Other engines are based in Brussels, Frankfurt, Hanover, Paris and Dallas.
China said in July it would form three giant airline groups by merging 10 existing carriers to boost competitiveness after China joins the World Trade Organisation.
