Ethiopia's national air carrier, Ethiopian Airlines (ET) plans to boost flight frequencies to China from the current 36 flights per week to 50 flights per week, an Ethiopian official said on Saturday.

ET has five cargo and passenger flight destinations in China - Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Asrat Begashaw, head of public relations at ET, said that the carrier has planned to increase flight frequencies to China's capital Beijing from the current seven flights per week to 14 flights per week.

Begashaw said ET also plans to increase its flight frequencies to China's commercial hub Shanghai from the current seven times per week to 10 times a week.

"The remaining plan to include four more flight frequencies will be divided among ET's three other Chinese destinations, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hong Kong," he told Xinhua.

Begashaw further said that ET's plan to increase the number of weekly flights to Chinese cities to 50 is expected to be fully completed by the end of 2020.

ET is also planning to open a new flight route to Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, which is dubbed China's Silicon Valley as it is home to internationally-known high-tech companies including Huawei and ZTE.

ET was the first African carrier to offer flight services to China back in 1973.