“Airshow China,” the huge aerospace trade show that’s known officially as the “China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition,” ended Sunday in the southern-coast city of Zhuhai. It was the seventh time the event has been held.

But it’s the first time China’s commercial airplane sector has a long-term flight plan to follow.

Roughly $4 billion deals involving 102 aircraft were signed during the six-day event, which was attended by representatives of 600 aviation companies from 35 countries, officials from the Airshow China Organizing Committee told the People’s Daily newspaper.

But the real news was that China has set a timetable for its proposed “jumbo” jet, a passenger aircraft China plans to design and build domestically to compete directly with commercial jetliners built by industry heavyweights Airbus SAS of Europe and The Boeing Co. (BA), the U.S.-based airliner industry pioneer that’s America’s biggest exporter.

China said its jumbo jet would be on the market by 2015. The Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China Ltd. (CACC), established in May, was put in charge of the huge jetliner’s assembly, marketing and after-sales service. The government is providing $2.9 billion in seed money for the venture.

Miao Wei, vice minister of industry and information technology, told the People’s Daily that the design concept and research on the airplane’s key technologies will be finished before 2010, and the first airliner will roll off the production line before 2015. With those tasks completed, China’s jumbo jet should be in service by 2020.

“The next few years will be an important period for China’s aviation industry,” Miao said.

China’s move into the jumbo-jet market is just the latest move by the world’s fourth-largest economy to establish itself as a global superpower. This particular project was chosen well.

During the next 20 years, in fact, Boeing estimates that air carriers worldwide will require 28,600 commercial aircraft with a value of $2.8 trillion. The Boeing outlook is generally viewed as the world’s best analysis of the global market for commercial airliners and cargo aircraft.

And this projection isn’t limited to jumbo-sized passenger jets: It includes short-range connector planes, regional jets, cargo planes and the jumbos. When it refers to a "jumbo" jet, China is talking about the so-called wide body airliners that carry 200 to 800 passengers and that make globetrotting trips to almost any point on the globe.

China alone will require 3,400 new airplanes worth about $340 billion over the next 20 years, Boeing projected in its recent market forecast. That works out to sales of about  $17 billion annually over the next two decades. About 2,650 of those commercial airplanes will be actual airliners, Airbus projected in a forecast of its own.