Hanthawaddy Airport Agreement in Final Stage
By San Yamin Aung 5 October 2016
RANGOON — A final concession agreement will be signed by the end of this year with the Japanese-Singapore consortium which won a tender to construct the Hanthawaddy International Airport north of Rangoon, according to a government minister.
U Thant Sin Maung, Burma’s Minister for Transport and Communications, told lawmakers during the parliamentary session on Tuesday that the agreement for the new airport project, which is expected to cost US$2 billion (in its first phase), will be signed this year.
Efforts to construct the new airport near the town of Pegu have been carried out intermittently for almost two decades.
Incheon Airport Consortium, a South Korean conglomerate, won the first tender in Aug. 2013, but negotiations on lending terms for the project broke down and the government rescinded the contract. The new tender was awarded in Oct. 2014 to a Japanese-Singapore consortium comprised of Singaporean firms Yongnam Holdings Ltd. and Changi Airports International, as well as Japan’s JGC Corporation.
U Ye Htut Aung, a deputy director general of the Department of Civil Aviation under the Ministry of Transport and Communications, told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that further negotiations will be held with the consortium; it is estimated that construction will start at the start of next year after signing the concession agreement.
“The airport will become the major gateway for international flights into the country,” he said, adding that the existing Yangon International Airport will be used mainly for local flights.
Once the first phase of the project is completed in 2022, which is planned for five year construction period, Hanthawaddy International Airport will have an initial capacity to handle 12 million passengers per year. Upon completion of the second phase, it will have a capacity of 30 million passengers annually, the deputy director general said.
Hanthawaddy International Airport will be located at the site of an old airport near the town of Pegu on over 9,500 acres of land.
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