China Southern Airlines, the country's largest carrier by fleet size, said on Friday it had signed a contract to buy 50 A320 passenger jets from Airbus.

The airline said it would pay CNY26.53 billion yuan (USD$3.32 billion) for the jets, scheduled to be delivered between 2009 and 2010.

China agreed last December to buy a total of 150 planes from Airbus and China Southern's 50 plane contract appears to be part of that order.