China Southern unit to buy 20 Boeing 737s

SHANGHAI, April 20 (Reuters) - China Southern Airlines (600029.SS: Quote, Profile, Research), the country's largest airline by fleet size, said on Sunday its subsidiary Xiamen Airlines had signed a contract with Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) to buy 20 Boeing 737 airplanes.

The 20 aircraft have a list price of about $1.5 billion, but Xiamen Airlines negotiated a lower price, China Southern said. The subsidiary would pay for the planes with its own funds and with bank loans.

It was not immediately clear whether the 20 planes represented a new order for Boeing or if their purchase had been previously announced by the Chinese government under one of its umbrella deals with foreign aircraft makers.

China Southern also said that it planned to issue 4 billion yuan ($572 million) of short-term bills of up to one year, to raise operating funds. It did not give further details of the issue. (Reporting by Andrew Torchia; Editing by Quentin Bryar) (andrew.torchia@reuters.com; (8621) 6104-1761))