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SCHORSSOW, Germany, April 26 (Reuters) - Europe's largest aerospace firm EADS aims to overtake U.S. arch-rival Boeing within 10 years, and is sticking to its 2004 targets, executives said in remarks embargoed for Monday.
Joint Chief Executive Rainer Hertrich repeated that 2004 earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) should grow to 1.8 billion euros ($2.1 billion) on flat sales, and said defence orders on hand should reach 50 billion euros by the year end.
Hertrich added at a press seminar that the firm aimed to grow its annual revenues to 40 billion euros from last year's 30.1 billion by around 2007 through strong sales growth of the A380 superjumbo made by Airbus, of which EADS owns 80 percent.
EADS shares were up 4.6 percent at 20.98 euros by 0939 GMT.
Airbus outsold Boeing in 2003 for the first time in 30 years and is on the verge of breaking Boeing's monopoly of the jumbo market with the A380, which will begin flying in 2006. Hertrich said EADS aimed to outdo Boeing in all areas within 10 years.
The company confirmed industry sources' estimates that the NATO "Eye in the Sky" surveillance system contract, which was awarded to a consortium led by EADS earlier this month, was worth around four billion euros.
"It should be in that order of magnitude," EADS defence chief Tom Enders told journalists at the event in Germany's Schorssow castle in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
EADS also wants to establish a joint venture with Finmeccanica unit Alenia Spazio to operate the Columbus laboratory on the International Space Station by the end of the year, EADS space unit board member Josef Kind said.
And defence and communication systems chief Stefan Zoller told Reuters on the fringes of the event that EADS was in talks with Kazakhstan on a deal to supply a radar system to its air force, potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Hertrich said the company's shareholder structure would stabilise in the next two, three years.
DaimlerChrysler currently has a 30-percent stake in EADS, while the French government and French magazine publisher Lagardere , each have 15 percent. Lagardere has said it will hold onto its stake until 2006.