Spanish firm to build three airports in Vietnam

The airports will be the International HCM City-Long Thanh Airport, costing US$6 billion, the new Ha Noi International Airport, US$8 billion, and the Chu Lai International Airport in central Vietnam with an investment capital of more than US$1 billion.

The investments will make Garuda the biggest foreign investor in the country so far.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to undertake the Long Thanh airport feasibility study was signed by the company and the municipal People's Committee on January 20.

Long Thanh airport will be about 43km from the hub of HCM City. It is expected to generate 5,500 permanent jobs for Vietnamese workers after construction. Garuda group is an airport/seaport builder, manager and consulting company. Giuliano Koenigsberg, chairman of the Aviation South East Asia, a branch of the Garuda Group, said yesterday the company would carry out the feasibility study and map out a master plan for Long Thanh project jointly with Vietnam's Southern Aviation Corporation.

Last month, the Garuda Group also reached an MoU with the Airport Design Construction Consultancy to set up a joint venture to build the new Ha Noi International Airport, its biggest project in Vietnam.

The foreign partners include Spanish Galo Architects and Italian AIG. The airport would have two heliports, a hospital, school, apartments and hotels. After completion it is expected to generate 10,000 permanent jobs.

Construction of the Ha Noi airport was expected to be carried out in three stages, the first from next year run until 2015 at a cost of US$4 billion, the second from 2015-18 would cost US$1.5 billion and the last phase would cost US$2.5 billion.

Phase one would accommodate 480 flights a day and 35 million passengers a year. Capacity would grow to about 850 flights daily and 62 million passengers annually by 2025 and to 1,096 flights daily and 80 million passengers annually by 2035.

Last month, Garuda Group also agreed with the Middle Airport Corporation to establish a joint venture to build Chu Lai International Airport in the central province of Quang Nam. It was expected that Chu Lai would be larger than neighboring Da Nang Airport.

Chu Lai had an annual capacity of 2.25 million passengers and 1.5 million tons of cargo by 2015 and 4.1 million passengers and 5 million tons of cargo by 2025.

Koenigsberg said Chu Lai was chosen because it was an important gate to central Vietnam and was near Dung Quat and Chu Lai economic zones, Hoi An and the seaports of Ky Ha and Lien Chieu.

The group set up an office in Ha Noi last year, providing consulting, investment and construction services for infrastructure projects, market surveys, trade and others.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email