Australia "pleased" with Chinese contribution of 20 mln AUD to search of MH370

Australia is pleased to see a contribution from the Chinese government towards the costs of the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, a top official in charge of the coordination of the search operation told Xinhua on Tuesday.

In an email to Xinhua, Annette Clark, Director of the Joint Agency Coordination Center (JACC) on the Search of MH370, expressed gratitude for the latest Chinese contribution of a ship and 20 million Australian dollars (about 14.5 million U.S. dollars) to the cause.

Her words echoed the remarks by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who said in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday after meeting his Malaysian counterpart Datuk Seri Najib Razak on the sidelines of the 27th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits that Australia is pleased to see the Chinese pledge of contribution, which "is very helpful."

Clark said the Chinese contribution "continues the arrangements where Australia is coordinating and undertaking the search with Malaysia and China."

She explained that the Chinese funding is to contribute to the completion of the current search area of 120,000 square kilometers.

"It does not involve an extension of the search area or a change in the approach to the search," she said.

The Malaysian Airline flight, a Boeing 777-200, disappeared on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with a total of 239 people on board, most of them Chinese.

Currently, two vessels contracted by the Malaysian and Australian governments are conducting sea-floor searches in the southern Indian Ocean thousands of kilometers off the coast of Western Australia. According to JACC weekly report, more than 70,000 square kilometers of the seafloor have been searched so far.

The Malaysian government confirmed in August that an aircraft flaperon found on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion belonged to the missing flight. Enditem