In three years China's private aircraft will be able to take to the skies without having to go through complex legal requirements.

The General Administration of Civil Aviation (CAAC) said on its website yesterday that China has set 2010 as the year it will categorize its airspace according to international standards.

"It means the airspace will be put into categories, such as low and high attitude. We will adopt different control and management rules," said a CAAC official who declined to be named.

The decision will make a big difference, because "low attitude airspace, which at present is not fully used due to controls, will be made more use of in the future," the official said.

This will boost the country's general aviation sector, said an expert with the General Aviation Expert Committee, affiliated to the Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

The expert, who declined to be named, told China Daily the policy will greatly stimulate small aircraft sales, which have remained low because of airspace controls and lack of pilots.

"It also signals that China's sky will be more open," he said.

At present all of China's airspace is under military control.

This is one reason for the slow development of general aviation which ranges from corporate jets, air taxis to crop-dusting, cloud seeding and aerial photography.

In places like east China's Zhejiang Province, where many people are rich enough to buy a small private jet, to get a plane airborne is more difficult than paying for it.

According to the present regulations, general aviation flights need to be approved by the authorities beforehand.

As demand has been growing for the opening up of the airspace below 3,000 meters, the government set a strategic goal in 2004 to adopt airspace category standards.

The CAAC said: "Adopting airspace categories can ensure that the different demands of public transportation aviation, general aviation, and military aviation can all be met."

The CAAC said it has been studying latest world trends and research in airspace categories.

In most countries where low attitude airspace is open, general aviation flights only need to inform the nearest civil aviation authority before taking off.

(China Daily April 20, 2007)