EUROPEAN aircraft manufacturer Airbus could clinch a deal to sell 100 passenger jets to China during a visit to France by China's President Hu Jintao today, sources familiar with the matter claim.

The potential US$10 billion deal dominates a list of contracts sought by French-based companies during Hu's visit which could also see preliminary contacts between China and Dassault Aviation over cooperation in business jets, the sources said.

It is believed that there have been intense negotiations in the days leading up to the summit, reflected in a wide range of estimates of the number of planes involved, which would depend in turn on narrowing differences over price.

One source said the number of planes to be pencilled into a final batch of economic agreements set to be announced today ranged from zero to the "usual range."

That phrase is a reference to deals involving about 150 aircraft each struck at two previous state visits to China by President Nicolas Sarkozy and his predecessor Jacques Chirac.

Boeing grabbed a similar deal during a visit by former US President George Bush, with big-ticket orders often described as a tool to maintain balanced relations.

China has been shy of placing orders during the economic crisis but its state airplane buyers are said to be back in the market on the back of a surge of interest from plane leasing companies this year.

Boeing predicted on Tuesday that China would triple its airliner fleet size over the next 20 years, adding 4,330 new planes worth US$480 billion. The US planemaker is betting that new Chinese wealth and government spending on infrastructure will bolster travel, where domestic passenger traffic is estimated to grow an average of 7.9 percent annually.

If an Airbus deal on the scale envisaged is confirmed, it would be the first major purchase from China since the economic crisis, and the first since Airbus started assembling planes at Tianjin near Beijing in 2009. Airbus has so far assembled 32 A320 single-aisle planes there.