Beijing ? Boeing Co. says it expects China to buy 1,912 new aircraft during the next 20 years as the country grows to become the world’s second-largest aviation market after the United States.

The aircraft purchases in the 2001-2021 period will be worth a total of $165 billion, the Chicago-based plane maker and defense contractor said in a forecast issued at the China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, a southern Chinese city.

“China is one of the key commercial aviation markets for the Boeing Company,” Boeing China president Fred Howard said.

Boeing now has 392 jets in service in China, which it says gives it a 65 percent share of the country’s 605-plane passenger airliner fleet.

Boeing expects most of China’s aircraft purchases will go to expanding the country’s fleet rather than replacing old aircraft. It says the number of jet airplanes in service will rise from 636 today to 2,320 in 2021.

Boeing is the state’s largest private employer with about 12,000 workers in Wichita.