The new international airport in the Angolan capital of Luanda will be the largest ever built by any Chinese enterprise outside China, according to the project contractor.
Liu Hongguang, the chairman of China National Aero-Technology International Engineering Corp – a construction subsidiary of the Aviation Industry Corp of China – told China Daily that “If everything goes according to plan, it will be finished around November and will then start initial operation.”
When complete, the US$3.8 billion airport will become one of the most important air hubs in Africa, the paper says. Built on a 43-hectare site, with two runways, it is designed to handle 100,000 flights, 15 million passengers and 50,000 tons of cargo a year.
[See more: Construction gets underway at Angola’s massive hydropower project]
Ancillary facilities, such as office buildings, hotels, conference and exhibition halls, and logistics parks, are being planned in the vicinity.
Liu told China Daily that the airport employed energy-efficient technologies and that its construction had already proved a boon for the local economy.
“We have trained a great number of local employees,” he said. “This project has injected momentum into many local businesses such as construction materials, machinery and logistics. It has extensively boosted local employment and economic growth.”
