Paris  -  Emerging economic giant China will need some 2,800 new passenger and cargo aircraft between this year and 2026, European aircraft manufacturer Airbus said Thursday.

In its 2007-2008 Market Forecast, the France-based manufacturer said China's aircraft requirement represents 11.6 per cent of the world's demand in the next 20 years and has a total market value of 329 billion dollars.

While most of the need in China will be for single-aisle aircraft, the number of very large aircraft (VLA), such as the Airbus A380 superjumbo, "is forecast to be on the rise as international traffic from and to China is to greatly increase," Airbus said.

Chinese passenger traffic is expected to grow five-fold over the next 20 years and the passenger aircraft fleet will triple.

"A total of 2,670 new passenger aircraft are needed in the next 20 years on the Chinese mainland," Airbus said. (dpa)