Beijing Capital International Airport, the country's biggest airport operator, has reaffirmed a plan to list shares on the domestic market within the year, a state-run newspaper said on Saturday.

The company will take advantage of the improved markets and monitor it closely to see when it is appropriate to launch the long-planned domestic initial public offering, chairman Zhang Zhizhong was quoted as saying by the China Daily.

But Zhang declined to give details, the paper said.

The airport handled 30.9 million passengers in the first six months of the year, up 19 percent from a year earlier, and is expected to exceed the 62 million target set for the year, Zhang said.

(Reporting by Rujun Shen and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)