MOSCOW, May 14 (RIA Novosti) - The first Sukhoi Superjet 100 medium-haul passenger airliner made test runs on a runway in Russia's Far East as part of final preparations for its maiden flight, the manufacturer said on Wednesday.

"During the test runs [in Komsomolsk-on-Amur] the plane reached the take-off speed of 162 kilometers per hour," a Sukhoi Civil Aircraft official said. "According to the crew and engineers, it performed very well."

The plane completed ground tests in April and has been cleared for its first flight.

"It is an excellent aircraft. Its handling and ergonomics are comparable to those of Airbus and Boeing planes," said Alexander Yablontsev, a chief test pilot, who has over 8,000 hours of flying time with various passenger aircraft, including Boeing-737, Airbus A319 and A320.

The Superjet 100 project is a family of medium-range passenger aircraft developed by the Sukhoi Design Bureau in cooperation with major American and European aviation corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace, and Honeywell.

The company plans to manufacture at least 700 Superjet 100s, and intends to sell 35% of them to North America, 25% to Europe, 10% to Latin America, and 7% to Russia and China.

Mikhail Pogosyan, Sukhoi's general director, said in January that the company had secured 73 solid orders for the aircraft.

The list price of a 95-seat base model is $28 million, but the company is currently working on both smaller and larger capacity modifications.

The market for the Superjet 100 is estimated at around $100 billion for around 5,500 planes, through 2023.