A consortium led by South Korea’s Incheon airport has won the tender for the Hanthawaddy International Airport project in Myanmar.
South Korea’s ministry of land, infrastructure and transport announced on 11 August that Incheon airport will be undertaking the project together with four other South Korean companies – Kumho Industrial, Halla Engineering and Construction, Lotte Engineering and Construction and Posco Co.
The new airport will be located around 48 miles (77km) northeast of Yangon, and have the capacity to handle 12 million passengers annually.
Incheon airport is aiming to complete construction of the new airport by 2018 and it will have the right to run the airport for 50 years. The project is expected to cost around $1.1 billion.
Construction of the new airport on the site originally started in 1994, but stopped in 2003 because of financial issues.
Yangon International Airport, the country’s existing international gateway, exceeded its capacity of 2.7 million last year. The country had previously said that it expects passenger numbers to hit 5.4 million by 2015.
Under reformist president Thein Sein, the country has opened up and is making a comeback on the international stage, attracting both tourists and investors.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news