ASTANA, Kazakhstan, June 1. A new international terminal has opened at Kazakhstan's Almaty airport, which was built with the support of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Trend reports.
The total cost of the project to build a new passenger terminal and expand the existing infrastructure was $780 million.
Thus, to implement the project, the EBRD provided a long-term loan of $150 million, and IFC provided a senior long-term A/B loan in the amount of $222 million to a consortium of investors led by TAV Airports, a global airport operator.
Moreover, the EBRD and IFC secured parallel loans from the Eurasian Development Bank and DEG for $39 million each, bringing the total debt financing package to $450 million.
The new terminal will be the first in Central Asia to be certified under the Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies (EDGE) program. The total area was 53,500 square meters. The new international terminal will be able to handle up to 14 million passengers a year (compared to 3 million passengers now).
To note, international flights are operated from Kazakhstan to 28 countries. Thus, flights are carried out on 121 routes with a frequency of 567 flights per week.
Furthermore, the number of passengers transported by air in Kazakhstan amounted to 13.3 million from January through December 2023. This is 20.7 percent more than in the same period in 2022.
At the same time, passenger turnover amounted to 25.9 billion p-km (increased by 28.8 percent compared to January–December 2022).