Come fly with us

It’s up, up and away as the first made-in-China Airbus A320 successfully completed a four-hour maiden flight yesterday, demonstrating that the plane’s quality can be maintained whether it is built in Hamburg, Toulouse or Tianjin. Airbus expects to turn out four A320s a month in China by the end of 2011. Beijing’s desire for outbound investment is taking off again as well. On Monday, the Ministry of Commerce announced on its website that overseas investments are now attractive and investment costs are falling. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange joined in, saying it will ease its approval process and expand foreign exchange reserves available for investment abroad. The National Social Security Fund has already leapt on the bandwagon. It now wants Beijing’s approval for billions of dollars in planned investments in foreign private equity funds. The one group not taking to the skies is Chinese tourists. Swine flu fears have kept groups away from destinations such as Hong Kong, the US and Europe, but the drops in tourist numbers aren’t as bad as the SARS crisis of 2003…yet.