Jam-packed airports add to pressure

The Center for Asia Pacific Aviation says $33.8 billion is invested or is earmarked to be invested in construction and associated projects at existing airports in 77 projects in more than nine African countries, meaning the average price tag on each of the projects is almost $440 million.

In many countries, airports built decades ago have long since become incapable of handling the thousands of passengers flowing through them every day. Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, opened in 1958 with capacity of 1.5 million passengers a year. But passenger flow has reached 6.5 million a year and it is estimated that this will reach 25 million in 2025.

Hong Shangyuan, general manager of China Airport Construction Group Corporation, says growth in Africa now echoes what China went through in its early days of reform and opening-up, when airport construction developed rapidly.

"The airport construction industry in China grew at 1.5 to 2 times the speed of GDP growth at that time. And usually growth in aviation comes a lot earlier than does economic growth."

If political stability in Africa can be maintained, the market will continue to boom, he says. China Airport Construction Group Corporation, with an eye on the opportunities, opened an office in Togo in late 2012.

As Africa continues to grow economically it has become the ideal staging spot for Chinese companies eager to draw on their experience in building airports.

There are now more than 200 civil airports in use in China, and plans were announced for 100 new airports, and for 120 airports to be rebuilt or expanded during 2011-15.

"Many airports in China have been relocated and some have been expanded or rebuilt several times," Hong says. In the past 60 years there have been more than 10,000 airport projects in the country, Hong says.

Liu Ying, chief economist of the company, says: "In China we have built airports on land with all features that you can find anywhere else, and so Chinese companies have the technologies to tackle almost all challenges in building airports."

Over the past 40 years, Africa's demand for new airports has reflected the demand for them in China, but set against the urgency for these airports is the need for them to be built cheaply, Liu says.

China Airport Construction Group Corporation has worked on 30 overseas projects over the past 10 years, but most of that work has been limited to design, Hong says. In total it has taken part in more than 200 construction projects.

On Dec 26, 2011, with Weihai International Economic & Technical Cooperative it won the bid to upgrade and expand Lome international airport in Togo, at a cost of $150 million.

It was the first airport project China Airport Construction Group Corporation had won a tender for overseas under the engineering, procurement and construction model, whereby a contractor is responsible not only for designing a project but also for building it.

Hong is confident his company can compete with companies from other countries "because it's hard to find a company that has built more than 200 airports and a team as large as 1,700 specializing in airport construction".

"We have grown into an enterprises group that can offer a broad range of services in airport construction, including site selection, planning, design, construction, supervision and R&D."

The quotations Chinese companies give for such work are very competitive with those of companies from other countries, he says.

However, they still need to do their utmost to familiarize themselves with the African market, its laws, regulations and procedures.

"Once we are familiar with these, we will be very competitive."