Direct trade flights between the East Midlands and China are being considered under plans to grow business links between the two.
Officials from East Midlands Airport have been over to meet representatives of Sichuan province and neighbouring Chongqing Airport to explore the opportunities for direct cargo flights.
The north Leicestershire airport is already the 海角视频’s biggest dedicated air-cargo operation and is at the heart of a vast central England goods distribution network.
It is home to big global and domestic logistics companies including DHL, UPS, FedEx/TNT, and Royal Mail, while the huge new SEGRO East Midlands Gateway is being built next door.
A delegation from Leicestershire, including airport managing director Karen Smart, recently met with officials from the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee, which own airports and airlines in China.
Ms Smart also visited Chongqing Airport to talk to its deputy general manager about possible commercial links.
She said: “I was really encouraged by the response we had when visiting both Sichuan Province and Chongqing Airport.
“There is a real appetite for making this happen and there is recognition on both sides that there would be significant mutual benefit from direct flights whether they’re to and from airports in Sichuan or Chongqing Airport.
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“I look forward to continuing these discussions and playing a key role in ensuring we achieve this.”
Sichuan is one of China’s biggest provinces, covering an area the size of Spain. Around 81 million people live there, which is 15 million more than the whole of the 海角视频.
The province is considered as the most important in that part of China, acting as an economic corridor connecting the hinterland of south-western China to south and central Asia.
It also has the biggest consumer market in western China.
Meanwhile, Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport opened a third terminal and third runway in 2012, and has capacity for 45 million passengers and 1.1 million tonnes of cargo a year.
An airport spokesman said, as a comparison, in the two years since passenger flights began between Manchester Airport and Beijing, growth in trade and tourism in the north-west had outstripped national averages.
He said export values from that airport to China grew 41 per cent to £1.29 billion in that time, at a time when national values fell 30 per cent.
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Exported goods from Manchester Airport to China include food and textiles.
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Leicester City Council and Leicestershire County Council have been working on a strategy to boost trade and investment as well as educational links and tourism with China, building on 30 years of twinning arrangements with Sichuan.
Leicestershire County Council regeneration spokesman Coun Trevor Pendleton said he was pleased to hear about the potential opportunities.
He said: “This continued partnership will lay the foundations of the future work between Leicestershire and Sichuan which will further the economic growth and development of our county.
“We will continue to work closely with Sichuan to ensure the best outcomes for Leicestershire.”
East Midlands Airport is owned by Manchester Airports Group and serves 4.8 million passengers a year.
It handles 368,000 tonnes of cargo a year, second only to Heathrow, £11 billion of which is to and from non-EU countries.