China’s HNA Airport Group will double its investment for repair and maintenance of the airport in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second largest city, the transport ministry said on Friday, Reuters reports.
In March Bulgaria awarded HNA Airport Group a 35-year concession to run the airport in southern Bulgaria with the concessionaire obliged to make investments amounting to 79 million euros ($93 million) over that period.
“The Plovdiv airport concessionaires will invest twice as much in a shorter time than projected,” the ministry said in a statement.
HNA Airport Group has said it plans to gradually build Plovdiv airport into a cargo distribution and regional tourist hub for central and eastern Europe. The group also operates 16 airports in China with total passenger traffic of 47.9 million.