St Louis aims to develop air cargo hub with China

METROPOLITAN St Louis Missouri is sending a delegation to Beijing to sell the city's location as an international Chinese air cargo hub.

A half-dozen St Louis area economic development and aviation officials are off for a week of talks with Chinese authorities, Midwest-China Hub Commission chairman Mike Jones told the St Louis Post-Dispatch.

This is not a theoretical conversation, Mr Jones said. This is about how we engage to move this to the next step, to prove out this idea.

It comes a year after a large delegation of St Louis area politicians and business leaders signed agreements in Beijing to study the air cargo hub proposal. Since then, the Chinese have made three high-level visits to St Louis, the report said. It noted that in January, China's ambassador to the US spent Chinese New Year in St Louis, celebrating the launch of the Hub Commission and US$1.7 million in federal money to fund its work.

Mr Jones added that the commission recently hired AeroStrata, a Houston-based air freight research firm, to help with studies of the potential two-way traffic between China and the US Midwest.

Source: Transportweekly