Chicago, Jul 4 (IANS): The global plane market will reach $4.5 trillion and will have doubled the existing fleet with 34,000 new planes over the next two decades, aircraft manufacturer Boeing predicted Tuesday.

The forecast appeared in the company's newly released 2012 Current Market Outlook, Xinhua reported.

According to Boeing's estimate, airline traffic will grow at an annual rate of five percent over the next 20 years, with cargo traffic expanding at 5.2 percent annually.

Boeing said the increased growth projection was representative of the strength of the airline industry as a whole, even as airlines and manufacturers have struggled with obstacles such as higher fuel prices.

"The world's aviation market is broader, deeper and more diverse than we've ever seen it," said Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. "It has proven to be resilient even during some very challenging years and is driving production rate increases across the board."

In the face of higher operating costs, Boeing said many airlines were ordering more fuel-efficient aircrafts to replace older models, and that replacement orders accounted for 41 percent the forecast's new deliveries.

As for technical makeup of deliveries, Boeing said that long-range widebody aircrafts accounted for more than half of the $4.5 trillion market, although the single-aisle aircraft market still continued to grow rapidly.

According to Boeing, one of the main factors driving the $2.5 trillion widebody airplane market was high demand from Asian airlines, which contribute 40 percent of those orders.

The Asia Pacific region leads the world in total aircraft orders. Over the next 20 years of deliveries totalling 34,000 planes, Boeing said 12,030 planes will be delivered to Asia Pacific, compared to about 7,000 planes each for Europe and North America.

Strong growth in emerging markets, and China and India in particular, will lead the global aircraft market to become more geographically balanced over the next two decades, Boeing said.

Headquartered in Chicago, Boeing is the world's largest combined manufacturer of commercial jetliners and military aircraft, and employs more than 170,000 people in 70 countries.