China's low-altitude economy sees robust growth: report

BEIJING -- The size of China's low-altitude economy exceeded 500 billion yuan ($69.15 billion) in 2023, up by 33.8 percent year-on-year, according to a report.

The report published on Monday by CCID consulting, a think tank under China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, has shown that the country's civilian drone sector expanded to nearly 120 billion yuan last year, while the industry of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft registered close to nearly 1 billion yuan.

The low-altitude vehicle manufacturing and low-altitude services made the largest contribution or nearly 55 percent to the strategic emerging industry, said the report.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said last week that there were nearly 1.27 million registered unmanned aerial vehicles across the country at the end of last year, up 32.2 percent year-on-year, and civilian drones flew a total of 23.11 million hours in the country last year, an increase of 11.8 percent compared to 2022.

As of February this year, there are more than 57,000 enterprises in China's low-altitude economic sector, according to CCID consulting.