Thailand’s Cabinet yesterday approved a bid by a consortium led by BTS Group Holdings PLC for an airport development project worth 290 billion baht (US$9 billion).
The project would add a third passenger terminal at the U-Tapao International Airport near Pattaya, which in normal times is a tourist hot-spot, and develop other facilities like air cargo and aviation maintenance centers.
The project is part of the Eastern Economic Corridor, a 1.7 trillion baht plan to build infrastructure and develop advanced industries along the eastern seaboard.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The corridor is an attempt to bolster long-term investment to improve Thailand’s economic outlook, which has been badly damaged in the recent weeks by the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Apart from BTS Group, the consortium includes Bangkok Airways PLC and Sino-Thai Engineering & Construction PLC.
The public-private partnership contract is due to be signed on June 19. Narita International Airport Corp has been selected to manage the airport.
BTS Group and Sino-Thai would handle construction, and Bangkok Airways would bring its aviation expertise, Eastern Economic Corridor Office Secretary-General Kanit Sangsubhan said.
Kanit added that his office is in talks with DHL Worldwide Express and FedEx Corp for the air cargo business planned at the airport complex.
Last year, a group led by Charoen Pokphand Group signed a contract to build high-speed rail connections between U-Tapao and the two international airports in Bangkok, one of the biggest transport upgrades in the country’s history.
Officials expect U-Tapao to have capacity for as many as 60 million passengers per year once it is expanded.
The plans for the airport and rail links were put in place before the coronavirus flared up and brought tourism to a standstill. Most international incoming flights are banned until the end of this month, and it remains unclear what tourism will look like when the curbs are eased.
However, Thailand plans to create so-called “travel bubbles” through bilateral agreements designed to keep COVID-19 in check when the country’s borders are reopened.
“Once the situation improves, we’ll allow travel between countries that we have an agreement with,” Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said in a briefing in Bangkok yesterday, adding no such pacts have reached the Cabinet yet.
“There won’t be free movement because we don’t want another outbreak that could hurt both the origin and the destination,” Prayuth said.
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