Among them are aircraft makers, particularly in North America and Europe, which have a much longer history in developing general aviation than does China.

One such is Piaggio Aero of Italy, which delivered its first aircraft to China last month, and which nurses ambitions of being a big player in the Chinese market.

"Europe and the US have been our largest markets for a long time," says John Bingham, chief marketing officer of Piaggio Aero. "But China has the most opportunities to become the largest market in the future, because of the booming economy and people's increasing desire to embrace what is in fact a much better way to travel."

The European and North American markets have been in a lull because of the economic slump "for a ridiculous amount of time", Bingham says, "so we decided to open new markets to gain certifications to sell in 2009".

"We decided we could be more aggressive instead of sitting there and waiting for the traditional market to recover. We could go for some new markets, such as China."

In doing so, the company has teamed up with the Chinese distributor CAEA Aviation Investment Company and was due to hand over two P180 Avanti II twin turboprop aircrafts to the Beijing company by the end of this year.

"The aircraft is to be operated by CAEA subsidiary Free Sky Aviation in a new club-style shared-use program for private clients," Bingham says.

"Since we are the new kid in this market in China, the top priority for us is to make our brand known to Chinese customers. They can first start to experience our aircraft through charter service. If they like us they will buy from us."

The company is confident of its future in China, he says.

Piaggio Aero is not alone in seeing the potential of the industry in China. The first time Bingham came to the Zhuhai Air Show, in 2004, just 12 aircraft were on display. At last month's show there were 100, illustrating how important China has become for aircraft makers, he says.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China projects that the number of general aviation aircraft will grow from about 1,200 now to about 2,000 in 2015 and between 10,000 and 12,000 in 2020.

Despite a slowdown in the economy, nearly all major companies remain optimistic about the Chinese market. In fact, aircraft makers and consultancies say that China is one of the markets driving demand in general aviation.

The report by the aircraft maker Bombardier predicts that 600 new business jets will be delivered to China by 2019; at present there are little more than 100 in the fleet. That is in line with strong purchases in the three years to 2011, when the number of business jets grew from 20 to 109.