China plans 45 new airports as travel booms

Beijing: China plans to build at least 45 new airports over the next five years to serve the booming travel industry's top regulator said on Thursday.

plans call for spending 1.5 trillion yuan ($ 230 billion) to expand air transportation, said Li Jiaxiang, administrator of Civil Aviation Administration of China.

About 130 of the 175 existing airports of China lost money last year, but Beijing will support them to improve local economic growth, Li said at a news conference.

He said income in the agriculture area increased when the airport opened near that allows them to fruit and vegetables flown in more prosperous cities.

China's rapidly growing air travel market has to go through North America as the biggest in the coming decades the world.

Li said plans call for increasing the number of airports, at least 220 in the next five years.

He gave no indication where they are, but Beijing is spending heavily to develop poorer regions and western China and to link them with the booming eastern cities.