Director Win Swe Tun stated that a consortium of three companies from Singapore and Myanmar finally won the contract late last year. Japan’s Overseas Development Agency has granted a low-interest loan for half of the estimated US1.4 billion cost of the airport and other investors and developers are putting up the remainder.
The site of Hanthawaddy is in the Bago Administrative Region and 80kms to the north of Yangon. The facility has been designed so that it will be able to accommodate 12 million passengers annually and cater to Myanmar’s emerging presence on the itineraries of international tourists.
The DCA is also in the process of expanding the current principal gateway to Myanmar, Yangon Airport, so that it is better equipped to cater to the increasing numbers of international visitors. This airport is only 15kms from downtown Yangon. It offers quicker passenger transfer times than the 90 minutes the journey from Hanthawaddy will probably take.
Myanmar confirms 2020 finish date for new Yangon airport
News in Asia
Myanmar’s aviation bureau has confirmed the country’s newest international airport will open in 2020. The director of the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) told reporters in Yangon that Hanthawaddy Airport would open one year later than originally planned as there had been significant delays in the process of tenders for the construction project.