By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Istanbul : India's GMR Group, which is restructuring the Delhi international airport, has bagged a prestigious airport deal in Turkey as part of a consortium.
The consortium has won the bid to build an international terminal at Sabiha Gokcen airport in Istanbul in an area frequented by Asians.
The Andhra Pradesh-based company began with infrastruture and agriculture and recently diversified into airports. It is also developing a new international airport at Hyderabad.
The 1.9 billion euro bid – excluding 18 percent VAT – was made in collaboration with Turkey's Limak, which like GMR holds 40 percent of the shares in the venture, and Malaysia Airports Holdings that has the remaining 20 percent.
The new terminal will increase the six-year-old airport's annual capacity to 13.5 million passengers from the current 3.5 million.
The consortium will run the airport for 20 years.
The trio defeated Turkish airline owner Esas Holding, partnered by Turkish airport operator TAV, which runs airports in Ankara, Izmir and the Ataturk Airport, Istanbul's main airport.
It also beat Germany's Fraport and Turkey's IC Construction, which bagged the Antalya airport deal only three months ago.
The new shot at foreign investment comes just ahead of a business meet in New Delhi Wednesday that will explore Turkey as a new growth centre for Asian and global corporations.
It also comes at a time Turkey is wooing fresh investment from Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, with investment laws that offer equal treatment to foreign investors.
Turkey holds its general elections on July 22 and the awarding of the contract on the eve of the exercise signals the success of the ruling Justice and Development Party despite earlier fears that the Islamist party would introduce restrictions.