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.