China Begins Construction of New Airport in Southern China's GBA Region

Guangzhou (ANTARA) - Construction of a new airport in southern China’s Guangdong Province officially began on Wednesday, adding a new aviation hub to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). The new infrastructure is the Pearl River Delta Central Airport (New Guangzhou), located in Gaoming District, Foshan City, right at the geographical centre between the cities of Foshan, Zhaoqing, Jiangmen, and Yunfu. The airport is expected to serve a population of more than 20 million people directly. With a total investment of 41.81 billion yuan (one yuan = Rp2,465), the project will include two parallel runways with a wide separation, a terminal building covering about 260,000 square metres, and 94 aircraft aprons. Annually, the airport is designed to handle up to 30 million passengers, 500,000 tonnes of cargo and mail throughput, and 260,000 aircraft take-offs and landings. An official from the Guangdong Airport Authority stated that the currently operating transport airports in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA are mostly located in the eastern part of the Pearl River Delta. Therefore, the new airport will serve as a transport hub for the western part of the GBA. In 2024, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA surpassed the New York Bay Area and the San Francisco Bay Area, placing it among the world’s leading bay areas. The GBA’s economic output is estimated to exceed 15 trillion yuan by 2025. Airports in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA reportedly delivered outstanding performance in 2025, handling more than 230 million passenger trips and around 9.72 million tonnes of cargo and mail. This data confirms the area’s status as one of the world’s leading aviation clusters, according to operational data released by the seven major airports in the region. Airports Council International projects that air passenger demand in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA will increase to 420 million by 2035.