China Southern Airlines, the country’s largest carrier by fleet size, is aiming to set up a cargo joint venture with Air France- KLM by the end of 2008, media and the Chinese carrier said recently. “The company is actively pushing forward the joint venture project with Air France-KLM to develop the scale of our cargo transportation capacity,” the carrier said in a fi lingwith the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, meanwhile cited Liu Shaoyong, China Southern’s chairman, as saying that the joint venture would be registered “by the end of this year”. He added that the new company would be based in either Guangzhou or Shenzhen, both in the southern province of Guangdong, depending on which city’s airport would put forward more attractive terms,the Hong Kong-based newspaper added.