Embraer SA Chief Executive Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva has said the Brazilian planemaker may think about building a factory in China for manufacturing commercial aircraft in a couple of years from now, Bloomberg reports.

“We may consider it if we have the right partner and enough interest for our jets,” the news agency quotes Mr Silva as saying. “We see potential for a little bit over 1,000 aircraft of the size that Embraer manufacturers for the next 20 years in China. We have 80 percent of that market.”

Any such factory would be the first Embraer facility abroad for making commercial aircraft.

Last year the company closed a factory it had in China for making private planes.