China on runway for jet takeoff

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/LE04Cb01.html

China may, by the end of the year, start deliveries of the ARJ-21 Xiangfeng (Soaring Phoenix), its first indigenously designed and developed commercial regional jet. According to the Chinese media, the fourth domestically-produced ARJ21-700 plane completed its maiden flightsuccessfully in Shanghai on April 13. 

Although the project itself is relatively modest in ambition and scope, the significance of the ARJ-21's deliverance is that it could be the precursor to the development of an entirely new industrial sector in Asia. The ARJ-21 series of large passenger jets offers serious competition to a field that is currently dominated by just a handful of firms in the Western hemisphere.