French firms to help expand airport in Ujungpandang
JAKARTA (JP): French companies will carry out the feasibility study and the construction of the expansion of the Hasanuddin Airport in Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi, according to Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto.
"Suvre Avia will conduct the feasibility study, while the company which will do the construction will be selected through an open tender," Haryanto told reporters here on Saturday.
He said that the expansion of the Hasanuddin airport will be financially assisted by the French government, which requires that French companies be given opportunities to conduct both the feasibility study and the construction of the project.
Haryanto refused to give further details about how much French loans would total and when the Indonesian government would open bidding.
The government is inviting local and foreign firms to build and expand several airports in the country under building, operating and transfer (BOT) contracts.
The projects, which consist of the construction of two new airports and the expansion of four existing ones, will likely cost around US$1.46 billion.
New airports will be built in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, and in Central Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara. The existing airports to be expanded will include the Juanda airport in Surabaya, East Java, the Adi Sumarmo airport in Solo, Central Java, the Hasanuddin airport in Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi, and the Sam Ratulangi airport in Manado, North Sulawesi.
Medan
The planned airport in North Sumatra will be built in Kualanamu of Deli Serdang, near the province's capital of Medan, replacing the aging Polonia airport.
The construction of the new airport in Medan, which will have two runways of around 4,000 meters in length each, will cost at least $600 million. The government recently picked PT Citra Lamtorogung Persada, a company owned by President Soeharto's eldest daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, to construct the new airport within three years. The company, in cooperation with Schiphol Airport of the Netherlands, will start constructing it in the middle of next year.
Haryanto declined yesterday to confirm whether or not a Singapore-based company will construct the new airport in Central Lombok which is expected to cost $169.37 million. Local and foreign companies will be involved in the construction and the operation of the airport under a BOT contract.
The expansion will enable airports in Ujungpandang, Solo, Manado and Surabaya to accommodate large aircraft like Boeing 747-400 planes. The expansion of the airports will be based on BOT contracts but he said that the arrangements should be jointly set with the state-owned airport management firm Perum Angkasa Pura.(icn)