Malaysia Airports-GMR group win Istanbul airport

Ankara: A consortium of Malaysia Airports Holdings, India's GMR Infrastructure and Turkey's Limak clinched the rights to Istanbul's second airport on Monday with a 1.9 billion-euro bid.
The winning bid -- which does not include 18 percent value added tax -- beat offers from four other consortiums of foreign and local players in a tender lasting more than 12 hours, said Mete Arslan, chairman of Turkey's Undersecretariat for Defence Industries (SSM).
The deal brings welcome foreign direct investment to fast-growing EU candidate Turkey and is good news for the ruling AK Party less than two weeks before a general election.
The consortium will build a new international terminal at the Sabiha Gokcen airport on Istanbul's Asian side and run the airport for 20 years. It will expand annual capacity to 13.5 million air passengers from about 3.5 million now.
Sabiha Gokcen opened in 2001 and hosts domestic Turkish flights and low-cost airline easyJet Plc , among others.
09/07/07 Orhan Coskun/Reuters.uk, UK

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Categories: Airports Jul 2007, Foreign Jul 2007, New Jul 2007