Number of Chinese civil airports will exceed 200 by 2014

The number of airports in China will exceed 200 by 2014, and new airport projects will be added to the authority's current five-year plan, an official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China said on May 6.

By the end of 2013, 13 new airports will be completed, increasing the number of Chinese airports to 196, Wang Kunzhi, deputy director of the airport department of the CAAC，said at the 2013 China Airports Summit on Thursday.

China will have more than 230 civil aviation airports, and 82 new airport projects will be started by the end of 2015, according to the government's 12th five-year plan.

The number will be more, as "the authority is researching 36 new airport projects now and some of them may be included in the 12th Five-Year Plan," Wang said.

But the new airport projects cannot be completed before 2015, he added.

Meanwhile, financing is still a problem for airport construction, some experts said.

"The airport constructions depends solely on government investment or loans from banks now," said Liu Zijing, director general of China Civil Airports Association.

Although the government encourages private and foreign capital to invest in airport, government investment is more welcome, he said.

Both private and foreign capital sources want economic benefits from the investment, but the government's investment do not demand a return, Liu said.

Changi Airport Group Pte Ltd, the airport management group in Singapore, used to sign shares acquisition agreements with two Chinese airports in 2007, but the agreements failed.