July 6 (Bloomberg) -- General Electric Co., the world's biggest maker of jet engines, said it plans to double parts purchases from China and India to lower costs.

``We have a goal to double our component buying power in China,'' Chaker Chahrour, the head of GE Aviation's Asian operations, said in a June 28 interview on the sidelines of the Star Alliance Asia Forum in Bangkok. ``Labor rates in Asia tend to be in the neighborhood of 60 percent of what they are in the Western world.''

General Electric, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, last year decided to target $10 billion of purchases from China and $8 billion from India in 2010, said Chahrour. Many low-technology structural engine components are produced in Asia, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Masumi Suga in Tokyo at msuga@bloomberg.net; Stephen Engle in Hong Kong at sengle1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 5, 2007 19:51 EDT