File photo: China Daily

XIAMEN, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- China has achieved comprehensive progress in the civil airport sector with a major move forward in building world-class airport clusters, said a senior civil aviation official Thursday.

The sector has gained progress in construction scale, speed, investment and effect over the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), said Dong Zhiyi, deputy head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

Dong made the remarks at a conference held in east China's Xiamen, focusing on China's civil airport development.

Over the 2016-2020 period, China endeavored to build three world-level airport clusters in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which are all key economic circles of China.

Alongside major moves in building world-class airport clusters, China has also moved forward in constructing 10 international aviation hubs and 29 regional hub airports, together with a number of non-hub airports, according to Dong.

By the end of the 2016-2020 period, China will see the total sum of its civil transport airports reach 241, with an annual increase of 7.4 airports.