Beijing— The rapid development of China's civil aviation brings challenges in many respects, including capacity, infrastructure and safety, said an European expert.

"The development is too rapid so that there is no enough time to fully deal with various problems. There are also no enough personnel to handle such big annual growth," said Frederic Campagnac, leader of the technical assistance team of EU-China Civil Aviation Project (EUCCAP) Tuesday.

In 2011 when the global airline industry slacked, the passenger volume in China increased 8.2 percent from a year earlier and the profits rose 5.1 percent to 45.6 billion yuan. The flight hours reached 455,000, up 16.3 percent from 2010.

However, there are only around 27,569 certificated pilots in China, compared with 100,000 in Europe

"Civil Aviation in China and EU are different in many respects, including the application of Safety Management System (SMS) and Quality Management System (QMS)," Campagnac said at the opening of the Workshop on Safety and Quality Management System of EUCCAP.

The EUCCAP is a technical assistance co-operation project implemented in partnership between the European Commission and the China, aimed at addressing critical bottlenecks with the rapidly expanding civil aviation sector and integrating more deeply the lesser developed regions into China’s civil aviation system and facilitate its economic development.