President launches US$400m airport runway project
President Abdulla Yameen launched Monday morning a US$400 million project awarded to China’s Beijing Urban Construction Group to build a new runway at the Velana International Airport.
27 Feb 2017, 9:00 AM
President Abdulla Yameen launched Monday morning a US$400 million project awarded to China’s Beijing Urban Construction Group to build a new runway at the Velana International Airport.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Adil Moosa, managing director of the state-owned Maldives Airports Company Ltd, said the new runway will be completed in 2018.
“This is our journey towards President Yameen’s vision of the airport catering to seven million passengers a year,” he said, referring to ambitious plans unveiled in April last year to upgrade the main international airport with US$800 million worth of foreign loans.
The 3,400-meter-long, 60-meter-wide runway will open the airport to the Airbus A380 jetliner, the world’s largest passenger airline, Adil said. It will be developed parallel to the present runway, which will be converted to a taxiway to make landings easier and resolve runway traffic issues.
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