Yang is also the member of China’s National Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultation Conference and disclosed this information during a small group meeting during the National Political Consultation Conference, according to a Central News Agency report.

In 2008, China’s total aviation turnover volume only increased 2.4 percent and its passenger turnover increased 3.3 percent. Thus, the loss mainly comes from various disasters that afflicted China such as major snowstorms, the Shichuan earthquake and the global financial meltdown.

Yang said the civil aviation industry is highly related to the overall economy and can be viewed as the barometer for the economy. The financial meltdown has reached this industry sooner than others. Although the passenger turnover volume for the industry has shown some increase in January, cargo turnover is still decreasing.

Yang said, “The global economic crisis has not hit rock bottom so the civil aviation industry should take an active approach to face this difficulty. We cannot be overly optimistic."

According to Yang, China's strategy this year will be to increase its investment in airport construction, expanding its cooperation with overseas investments, also strategically establish China's international service sector and actively develop international service sectors in the economy.

However, due to high oil prices and a significantly reduced demand, the aviation industry in China lost USD$8 billion in 2008.

Read the original article in Chinese.