(Agencies)Plane maker Airbus and French engineering and utility firms landed deals worth more than US$10 billion in Beijing yesterday as China rolled out the red carpet for French President Jacques Chirac.

Airbus SAS, the world's biggest plane maker, said it will sell 170 jets to Chinese airlines and build a factory in Tianjin.

The European plane maker signed with China Aviation Supplies Import and Export Group Corp to sell 150 A320 planes and 20 A350XWB models to China.

The deal is the biggest Airbus has ever made in China and follows a 150-plane contract that China signed with Airbus last year.

Airbus will also jointly set up its first final-assembly line outside Europe with a Chinese consortium including a trade development zone in northern Tianjin city, China Aviation Industry Corp I and China Aviation Industry Corp II in Tianjin.

The assembly line, to start production early in 2009 and produce up to four A320 planes a year by 2011, is expected to help Airbus get more business from domestic carriers.

Airbus, however, disclosed neither the value of the deal nor the delivery schedule for the planes.

The A320, a single-aisle, short-to-medium-range twin-engine jet capable of carrying up to 200 passengers, stays as Airbus's most popular model since Airbus entered China in 1985. Its direct competitor is Boeing's 737.

United States-based Boeing, the world's second-biggest maker of commercial planes after Airbus, forecast this week that China's airline operators will spend US$280 billion to buy 2,900 new airplanes over the next 20 years.

Aside from the big Airbus order, yesterday's signing ceremony saw French engineer Alstom sign a deal from which it will net US$400 million to supply 500 locomotives as China overhauls its railways.

Power giant EDF agreed to help develop nuclear power plants in China using existing technology, but little progress was reported on French efforts to sell new-generation nuclear power stations to China.

In Paris, utility Suez announced a US$1.2 billion 30-year water services deal in Changshu City.

President Hu Jintao and a 21-gun military salute welcomed Chirac at Tiananmen Square. Chirac, a vocal supporter for an end to the European arms embargo on China, is on his fourth visit as president, which caps a decade of improving ties.

His talks with Hu also focused on the Korean Peninsular crisis, with a joint declaration expressing "serious concern" over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's October 9 nuclear test, and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The DPRK test drew United Nations sanctions backed by France and China. "Doing nothing would strip us of any influence, credibility or legitimacy," Chirac told students at Beijing University.

The joint declaration said both countries are committed to respect universal human rights "whilst taking into account specific situations."