A joint venture between Airbus and Chinese partners, delivered its 1,000th locally manufactured rudder for the Airbus A320 family on Monday in Harbin in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.
The Harbin Hafei Airbus Composite Manufacturing Center (HMC) held a ceremony to celebrate the delivery at its No.2 workshop.
"HMC is an integrated part of Airbus' global supply chain. Today's delivery is a milestone for the manufacturing center and for our long-term partnership with China's aviation industry," said Francois Mery, Airbus commercial aircraft China chief operating officer.
Rudders manufactured at HMC are delivered to an Airbus site in Stade, Germany, where they are fixed to the A320 family vertical stabilizer before being delivered to A320 final assembly lines around the world.
HMC is a joint venture between Airbus China and a group of Chinese partners, including some subsidiaries of the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) and Harbin Development Zone Heli Infrastructure Development Company Limited. Airbus China holds 29 percent of the equity of HMC.
The center started production in December 2009. Now, it produces parts and components for Airbus single-aisle and the A350 XWB aircraft.
According to Airbus China, all Airbus commercial aircraft have parts made in China.
The total value of cooperation between Airbus and China's aviation industry reached about 500 million U.S. dollars in 2015. Airbus expects the figure to reach one billion dollars by 2020.
As of May 2017, more than 1,430 Airbus aircraft serve Chinese operators. More than 80 percent of them are of the single-aisle A320 family.
