3 Indian cos to bid for Male airport
Two leading private airport operators and
the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), that has been keen to be a big player in
airport development field, on Sunday will bid to build a $360-million airport in
Maldives' capital Male. The GMR-Malaysia Airports; GVK-Flughafen Zurich AG (that
runs Zurich airport) and Reliance Infrastructure-Mexico Airports Aeropuertos y
Servicios Auxillaries consortias will have Aeroports de Paris and Vienna Airport
as the foreign competition.
According to sources, the real fight will be between the three Indian companies
and Aeroports de Paris that has tied up with Turkish company TAV. The financial
bids will be opened next Thursday. The Maldives government has invited bids to
build a new terminal that has a capacity of handling five million passengers
annually and 12 aircraft parking bays. This capacity has to be built by 2014.
The GMR group is building and operating airports in New Delhi, Hyderabad and
Istanbul. The GVK group is modernizing Mumbai's airport and recently acquired
substantial stake in Bangalore airport. Anil Ambani was keen to win either Delhi
or Mumbai but was edged out by the other two five years back when Airports
Authority of India decided to privatize these airports.
Big Indian airport developers are now scouting for opportunities abroad. "Delhi
and Mumbai have been privatized. Kolkata is unlikely to go private and AAI is
developing both the airport there and at Chennai. Among the new projects, there
will be fight for Navi Mumbai, Goa's Mopa and whenever Greater Noida is
cleared," said a developer.
The areas of opportunity on their radar include eastern Europe and South
America. Most of the big Indian airport developers, including GMR, have set up
offices abroad to be closer to the action and seize whatever opportunity is
available.