TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, November 23. Uzbekistan plans to transfer 5 airports to the external management of investors, Trend reports.
The remark was made by Uzbekistan’s Deputy Head of the Air Transport Development Department of the Ministry of Transport Zhamoliddin Nazarov during the Central Asia Aviation Summit international conference held in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent.
"Today, the international airports of Namangan, Navoi, Bukhara, Urgench and Andijan are planned to be modernized and transferred to external management on the terms of public-private partnership (PPP)," Nazarov said.
He recalled that two years ago the Samarkand airport was transferred to external management and got successfully reconstructed.
As per Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Transport, the volume of air traffic in the country is planned to reach more than 13 million passengers by the end of 2025, against 9.2 million expected by the end of 2023.
Meanwhile, Uzbekistan Airports JSC, which manages all airports in Uzbekistan, and Air Marakanda LLC signed an agreement on the modernization of Samarkand Airport on PPP terms in September of 2021.
The project worth more than $80 million provides for the comprehensive development of the airport, the construction of airport infrastructure, as well as its operation. Enter Engineering, based in Singapore, serves as the Engineering-Procurement-Construction (EPC) contractor for the modernization project.