SEOUL, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Brunei has become the latest

country to allow its airlines to operate Chinese-made aircraft,

according to new rules published on Thursday by Brunei's

aviation regulator, in a boost for Shanghai-based planemaker

COMAC.

Brunei is a small market, but each advance for China-made

aircraft abroad is closely watched as Beijing looks for

international acceptance at a time when the aerospace industry

is struggling to meet demand for new planes and has been drawn

into the global trade war.

State-owned COMAC has ambitions to compete alongside

dominant planemakers Airbus, Boeing ( BA ) and Embraer ( ERJ )

, but its two plane models lack key certifications

from Western regulators and the company has not secured an order

from a major global airline outside China.

To show the world its planes are in active use, Beijing has

leveraged its relationships with regional allies like Cambodia,

Laos, Vietnam and Indonesia to place C909s with airlines there.

The push to permit airlines in Brunei to operate China-made

planes has been led by GallopAir, a Brunei-focused start-up

airline, which has C909s on order and which is backed by Chinese

investment.

In 2023, it ordered 15 C909s and 15 of COMAC's larger and

newer C919 narrow-body model, the first C919 order by a

non-Chinese airline.

Previously, Brunei's Department of Civil Aviation (DCA)

would only approve planes that had design certification from

U.S., Canadian, European or Brazilian regulators, which included

aircraft made by Boeing ( BA ), Airbus and Embraer ( ERJ ).

The aviation body's amendment, published on Thursday, added

the Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC), a regulator, to

its list.

In April, Vietnam added CAAC to its list of approved

aviation regulators, documents from the Civil Aviation Authority

of Vietnam showed.

COMAC has not delivered any planes to GallopAir and it is

not clear when the first delivery would take place, its CEO Cham

Chi said.

The C909, which has up to 90 seats, was China's first

jet-engine-powered plane to reach commercial production and it

entered service in 2016.

COMAC later launched the larger C919, which is intended to

compete against the popular Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX

narrow-body models. The C919 is currently only used by Chinese

airlines.

This year, COMAC has fallen behind on previously stated

delivery targets for its narrow-body C919 commercial plane,

according to regulatory filings from the three airlines that fly

the model.