The China-Singapore Bilateral Aviation Forum kicked off Thursday amid the Singapore Airshow 2024, attracting business leaders, scholars, and government officials to exchange ideas on aviation cooperation between the two countries.

Reliability and supply networks are important to civil aviation flights. Singapore could be a Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) hub for C919 in Southeast Asia with its mature aviation ecosystems when the jetliner is put into use overseas, said Desmond Goh, managing director of Asia Pacific for Eaton's Aerospace Group.

Singaporean and Chinese aviation sectors should enhance new-tech and talent exchanges and deliver complementary advantages to build a C919 MRO hub, noted Philip Sung, director and general manager at Auxitrol Weston (Singapore).

Representatives from China's Langfang and Taicang cities introduced their aviation-related industries and invited Singaporean enterprises to seek business opportunities.

The attending practitioners also shared views on carbon reduction in the aviation industry, the development of urban air mobility, and artificial intelligence use in aviation.

The Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Association of Aerospace Industries (Singapore) held the forum.