China's Hafei Aviation Industry Co. Ltd. signed an agreement Wednesday with Bell Helicopter Textron Canada to manufacture multipurpose Bell-430 helicopters.

Based in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Hafei will be the only provider of airframes for Bell-430 helicopters, according to the agreement.

Hafei will make the whole sets of airframes, tails and wings for the helicopters.

The Bell-430 helicopter is a kind of nine-seat multi-purpose helicopter, with a maximum flying speed of 258 kilometers per hour. It can fly a maximum distance of 654 kilometers.

Borith Hakim, Bell Helicopter Textron Canada global procurement chief, said at Wednesday's signing ceremony that the reason his company chose Hafei as its cooperative partner was that they were confident in its technologies and product quality.

The Hafei company was the first Chinese enterprise to cooperate with foreign firms in processing aircraft parts. It has established cooperative relations with several aircraft manufacturers of the United States, Britain, France and Singapore.

(People's Daily September 4, 2003)