Washington -- Great Wall Airlines Company Limited, a cargo airline jointly owned by Singaporean and Chinese firms, has been designated by the U.S. Department of Treasury as an entity that has provided support to proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Under the designation, as defined by Executive Order 13382, U.S. citizens are prohibited from all transactions with Great Wall Airlines, also known as Changcheng Hangkong.  The Treasury ruling also freezes any assets Great Wall Airlines may have under U.S. jurisdiction.

Great Wall Airlines began operations on June 22, roughly a week after the Treasury Department designated one of its parent companies, the Chinese state-owned China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), for having supplied Iran’s military with missile-related and dual-use components. (See related article.)

The U.S. Treasury Department did not give specific reasons for designating Great Wall Airlines in its August 25 announcement.  Great Wall Airlines is based in Shanghai and has a fleet of two Boeing B747-400 freighters on lease from Singapore Airlines Cargo.

Great Wall Airlines suspended operations after the Treasury designation became effective August 15 because the Boeing Company, an American firm, no longer could provide it with technical assistance, parts or aeronautical charts.  (Boeing owns Jepperson Sanderson, which supplies almost all the world's pilots with charts.)

Boeing has approached the Treasury Department for a license that would allow it to continue working with Great Wall Airlines, and the airline is appealing its listing by the Treasury Department.  Prior to suspending operations, the airline was providing cargo service to Amsterdam, Singapore and the Indian cities of Chennai and Mumbai.

Great Wall Airlines is a joint venture owned by CGWIC; Dahlia Investments, a subsidiary of the Singapore government's investment firm Temasek Holdings; and Singapore Airlines Cargo, a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines. Temasek Holdings owns 57 percent of Singapore Airlines.

For more information on U.S. policies, see The United States and China and Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

The full text (PDF, 2 pages) of the Treasury Department’s official notice is available on the Government Printing Office Web site. More information on sanctions related to stopping the proliferation of WMD is available at the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control Web site.