HONG KONG (Agencies) - A top Chinese military official has confirmed that Beijing is building an aircraft carrier, marking the first acknowledgement of the ships existence from Chinas secretive armed forces. In an exclusive interview published Tuesday, the Hong Kong Commercial Daily quoted Chen Bingde, chief of the General Staff of the Peoples Liberation Army, as saying the 300-metre refurbished Soviet carrier 'is being built, but it has not been completed. He declined to elaborate although there has been wide speculation that the vessel was nearly finished after the ship, then called the Varyag, was reportedly purchased in 1998. It is currently based in the northeast port city of Dalian. The ship, which an expert on Chinas military has said, would be used for training and as a model for a future indigenously-built ship, was originally built for the Soviet navy. Construction was interrupted by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Hong Kong paper quoted anonymous sources as saying the carrier will be launched by the end of June at the earliest. Qi Jianguo, assistant to the chief of the PLAs general staff, told the newspaper that the carrier would not enter other nations territories, in accordance with Beijings defensive military strategy. All of the great nations in the world own aircraft carriers - they are symbols of a great nation, he was quoted as saying. The PLA - the largest army in the world - is hugely secretive about its defence programmes, which benefit from a big military budget boosted by the nations runaway economic growth. China has been pushing ahead with construction of the mega-sized nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to be completed in 2020, according to a Chinese Communist Partys dossier. A source close to Chinese military affairs said on March 27 that China has been promoting the construction of a 93,000-ton atomic-powered carrier under a plan titled the '085 Project. The nation also has a plan to build a 48,000-ton non-nuclear-powered carrier under the '089 Project, added the source. Once the proposed Chinese carriers are deployed, the radius of the Chinese Navys range is expected to reach Guam, where a US base is located. Thus, military experts are worried about Chinas moves prompting an arms race in Northeast Asia. When the nuclear-powered carrier is finished, China will own an aircraft carrier which is on par with the USs newest of such vessels, the 97,000-ton atomic-powered USS Ronald Reagan, which recently docked at Busan Port to participate in a joint exercise between the South Korean and US militaries.