China ordered 50 Airbus passenger planes valued at up to 3.5 billion dollars Thursday in an agreement signed during the visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, dpa reported. China's ICBC Leasing, part of the state-run Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, agreed to buy 50 Airbus A320 planes, which have a total list price of 3.5 billion dollars. The Chinese government also signed an agreement to extend the life of an Airbus assembly plant in the northern city of Tianjin, the two governments said. The two nations signed more than a dozen other official and business agreements after talks Thursday between Merkel and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Wen and Merkel were scheduled to travel together by high-speed train from Beijing to Tianjin Friday and visit the Airbus assembly plant there, officials said. Other Sino-German cooperation agreements signed covered cars, communications, energy, the environment and health. The Tianjin assembly plant is a joint venture between the European aircraft maker Airbus and a Chinese government-backed consortium. It delivered the first Airbus A320 assembled outside Europe in June 2009.
