Translation 003

CHINA'S FIRST EVER JET

  Daniel Griffiths, BBC News, Beijing

China has unveiled its first ever passenger jet at a ceremony in Shanghai. The ARJ21 will carry up to ninety passengers and is
expected to be in service towards the end of 2009. This report from Daniel Griffiths:

China has big dreams for its aerospace industry and this plane is just the beginning. Beijing wants to build its own jumbo
jets by 2020 and challenge giants like Boeing and Airbus.

That's going to be difficult - China's starting from scratch with planes that don't have the track record of their competitors.
And although the ARJ21 is designed and assembled at home, much of the technology comes from the US and Europe.
China now has one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world. It's thought that it will need to buy three planes
every week for the next twenty years just to keep up with demand.
dreams
here, intentions
aerospace industry
aviation as a business
jumbo jets
very big passenger aircraft (like Boeing 747)
giants
here, very big manufacturing companies
starting from scratch
beginning to build its own planes without any previous experience
track record
past performance and achievements
competitors
teams, companies or countries that are trying to be more successful than others
designed
if you design something, like a building or, as in this case, a plane, you make or draw plans for it
assembled
put/fitted together
to keep up with demand
here, to have enough planes to carry all the people who want to use them

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