Martin Aircraft soars on deal to take jetpacks to China

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Shares in New Zealand-based Martin Aircraft soared as much as 45 percent on the Australian stock market on Wednesday, after announcing a series of deals aimed at ramping up sales of its pioneering personal jetpacks internationally.

Martin Aircraft and its joint-venture partner Chinese KuangChi Science signed an agreement with Beijing Voyage Investment Ltd at the Paris Air Show which will allow the company to deliver its manned and unmanned jetpacks to China's fast-growing aviation market.

Martin Aircraft, which expects to start its first deliveries of the $200,000 jetpacks initially to fire, police and search-and-rescue services in the second half of 2016, also announced it had penned a deal with India's M2K group to sell the aircraft in India as well as plans to open a European sales centre in Prague.

The news of the global expansion quickly prompted the share price to rise as much as A$1.10, its highest since March, before closing at A$0.925.

The company had a successful stock market debut in February with shares opening at A$0.60 versus their A$0.40 issue price after a financing deal with KuangChi Science to invest A$50 million over the following two years.

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Sunil Nair)