Airbus named George Xu as chief executive officer for Airbus China, and added that Eric Chen - previously president of Airbus Commercial Aircraft China - would succeed Laurence Barron as chairman of Airbus China.

Earlier on Wednesday, Macron said a contract with China for 184 Airbus A320 narrow-body jets would be finalised soon, and that his country also had ambitions to sell A350 and A380 planes to China in the coming weeks or months.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Mark Potter)