Rwanda has signed a deal with a Portuguese construction company firm Mota-Engil to build a new international airport worth 818 million US dollars.
The first phase of the Bugesera International airport will cost at least 418 million US dollars is expected to start being constructed by June 2017 and to be completed by 2018 December according to CNBC Africa
Plans to build the Bugesera International airport were announced in 2011 when the East African nation invited bids from the private sector to design, build, finance, maintain and operate the airport in a 25 year concession.
“The first phase is for 1.7 million passengers (per year) capacity and it gets all infrastructure associated for $418 million,” Mota-Engil Africa Chief Executive Officer Manuel Antonio Mota told reporters late on Thursday after signing an agreement with government officials.
Mota-Engil will operate the airport for 25 years with an option of extending to another 15 years according to the government of Rwanda.
The first phase will have passenger and cargo terminals, a 4.2 km runway to handle large commercial airplanes. The second phase will be adding another runway and more terminals which will cost around 400 million US dollars to rise the airport’s handling capacity to 4.5 million passengers annually.
The current Kigali International Airport has a capacity of 1.6 million passengers
“Bugesera International Airport is coming in at the time when it is badly needed because we all know that the current airport capacity is not matching the growth of our traffic in terms of aircrafts, in terms of passengers,” James Musoni, Rwanda’s minister for infrastructure, said.
