A consortium led by Corporation America Airports has won a contract to develop and operate Baghdad's international airport, Iraq's government announced on Tuesday.
The consortium, which also includes Amwaj International, is expected to spend $764 million on the airport's development, the Iraqi Prime Minister's office said. It didn't give details on how many years the contract will run.
It said the CAAP consortium submitted “the best financial offer”, which provides a 43.05 per cent share of the airport's annual revenue to the central treasury.
The offer exceeded a rival bid from the ASYAD consortium – consisting of YDA Insaat, Lamar Holding, Dublin Airport Authority and Top Engineering Corporation – which offered 38.05 per cent.
The winning bid includes plans to build a modern passenger terminal with an initial capacity of nine million passengers a year, which could be expanded to 15 million.
There are also plans to upgrade runways, taxiways, and aircraft parking areas, install 15 passenger boarding bridges, add a new building for the Civil Aviation Authority, a VIP terminal, a modern car park and revamp the cargo terminal.
The contract also includes upgrading the firefighting system, building a comprehensive water supply and waste management system and training personnel, paying employee salaries and developing their professional skills.
This project will create approximately 1,000 new direct jobs for every million new passengers, it is hoped. “This contract is considered one of the best investment contracts since 2006 in terms of returns to the central treasury and transparency,” the Prime Minister's office said.
The government has been working with the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation on public-private partnership models for managing and developing Baghdad International Airport, an approach Iraq will probably pursue for other airports.
Iraq is also reviewing bids from 12 firms to operate Mosul International Airport. The bids are from Turkish, British, Emirati and Omani companies.
Other airports in the country include Najaf International Airport that primarily serves pilgrims for Shiite shrines, Basra International Airport, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah international airports in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, and Kirkuk International Airport, which was opened in 2022. Two more airports are under construction outside the cities of Karbala in central Iraq and Nasiriyah, in the south.
