China announced orders for its first commercial passenger jet on Tuesday, in its bid to challenge European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company Airbus subsidiary and Boeing in the booming global airline market.

Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (Comac) said it had received orders for 100 of its C919 planes from the country's largest airlines, and at least one foreign company, throwing down the gauntlet to the US and European duopoly.

Comac said it had received orders from General Electric Co's aircraft leasing arm Gecas, as well as China's CDB Leasing. It said other buyers included China's top three airlines,  Air China, China Eastern Airlines Corp and China Southern Airlines as well as HNA Group, parent of Hainan Airlines.

As the country's first homegrown large commercial aircraft, the C919 has a designed capacity of up to 168 seats and is aimed at competing with Boeing's 737 and Airbus's A320, the world's most popular models in the narrowbody segment.

State-owned Comac is designing and building large passenger aircraft with a capacity of more than 150 passengers to reduce the country's dependency on Boeing and Airbus.
 -Reuters