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[align=justify]Directly under the State Council, the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) is a ministry-level organ, which is responsible for the national civil aviation affairs. CAAC is authorized by the CIVIL AVIATION LAW OF PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA to "enforce the unified supervision and regulation on the civil aviation activities of the whole country, and in accordance with laws and State Council's decisions, to issue regulations and decisions concerning civil aviation activities within its jurisdiction". In the light of the requirements in the CIVIL AVIATION STRUCTUAL REFORM PROGRAM (Guo Fa No. 6(2002)), CAAC is committed to the functions of safety administration, market regulation, air traffic management, macro-control, and international cooperation, including drafting laws and regulations on airline industry regulation, formulating rules and policies for the industrial regulation and standards for civil aviation safety and technology, carrying out the safety supervision on civil aviation activities according to CIVIL AVIATION LAW and other laws, regulations and standards for safety and technology, ensuring flight safety and security, presiding over and participating in investigations into serious flight accidents, administrating and supervising air transport market and maintaining fair competition, conducting air traffic management, guaranteeing chartered flights, working out overall plan for the industrial development, carrying out macro-control of the civil aviation industry, representing the country in dealing with civil aviation affairs involving foreign countries, and undertaking other tasks assigned by the Party Central Committee and the State Council.[align=justify] [align=justify]Under the CAAC, there are 7 regional administrations, which is responsible for the administration and supervision on the civil aviation affairs within their respective regions. They are: CAAC Northern Regional Administration, CAAC Northeast Regional Administration, CAAC Eastern Regional Administration, CAAC Central South Regional Administration, CAAC Southwest Regional Administration, CAAC Northwest Regional Administration, and Urumqi Regional Administration of CAAC. The regional administrations are department-level organs.[align=justify] [align=justify]The CAAC regional administrations have 26 CAAC Safety Supervision Offices (SSMO), which represent the regional administrations and are in charge of safety supervision and market regulation of civil aviation enterprises like airlines and airports within their respective regions. The 26 CAAC SSMOs are located in Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Dalian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Shandong, Xiamen, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Hainan, Guangxi, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Guizhou, Yunnan, Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai. [align=justify] [align=justify]Since the 3rd plenary session of the 11th Party Congress, our civil aviation industry has maintained a sustained and fast development in all respects, for instance, air transport, general aviation, fleet renewal, airport construction, route configuration, flight support, flight safety and personnel training, and its achievements attracted worldwide attention. From 1978 to 2004, China’s total air traffic turnover, passenger traffic and cargo & mail traffic (Hongkong, Macau and Taiwan not included) enjoyed average annual growth rates of 18.2%, 16.5% and 15.6% respectively, the average growth rate being more than doubling the world average. In 2004, the whole industry carried 23.1 billion ton-km of air traffic, 120 million passengers, 2.767 million tons of cargo and mail, and achieved 75 thousand flight hours for general aviation. By the end of 2004, we operated on 1279 scheduled routes, among which 1035 are domestic routes (including Hong Kong and Macau), and the other 244 are international routes. There are 133 airports (Hong Kong and Macau not included) for domestic civil aviation scheduled flights, forming a network with Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou airports as centers, provincial airports and touring city airports as hubs and other city airports as feeders, connecting 132 cities at home and other 75 cities in 33 countries. We witnessed continuous expansion of China's fleet, and by the end of 2004, we had 754 commercial aircraft, 675 of which are large and medium jets, and all of them are the most advanced in the world. In 2004, Chinese carriers carried a total of 23.1 billion ton-km of air traffic (Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan not included), ranking the 3rd among 188 Contracting States of the ICAO. In October 2nd 2004, China was elected as a Part One member of the ICAO Council at the 35th ICAO Assembly. |
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