Baghdad airport to build three more terminals

Iraq is continuing to stabilise

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Baghdad’s International Airport is to add three more terminals as an improving security environment in the country has raised the possibility of a growth in visitor numbers to more than double current figures.

The added terminals, in addition to its current three, were announced on Tuesday by the director general of the Civil Aviation Authority (ICAA) Adnin Blebil at an event in Dubai. He said the ICAA was expanding to accommodate 15 million passengers a year, up from around seven million today.

“I think very strongly that the scale of trading and tourism will be too high” for current resources, “and we’ll need to increase the capacity of the airports,” Blebil told delegates at the ‘Doing Business in Iraq’ conference, hosted by Gulf-based law firm Al Tamimi.

The new airport development – which also includes the construction of a bridge on the site - would create 70,000 job opportunities, he estimated, and will help when finished bring in revenue of around US $2 billion. Each terminal, he added, would service around 2.5 million additional passengers.

Despite continued international concern about security in the country, Blebil expects to catch the eye of a number of contractors and investors in the region.

“I think it will be very attractive for people who would like to invest in the country,” he said. “For that to work we need a masterplan,” he added, saying that it would then the project would be broken down into its constituent parts, such as the building of hotels and warehouses on the site.

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The question and answer session in the morning provoked many queries from delegates asking the panel about working in Iraq, from setting up a branch, budgeting for security services, tender availability and office locations.

Panellist Lawrence Peters, director of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, explained that more companies based in Baghdad were moving out of the green zone and into the so-called red zone, implying that their business was expanded and, allied with improving confidence, was causing more of the capital to host international firms.

It was also clarified that applications for residency in the country should be fast-tracked if the company already has a contract with a local company or government entity.

Further, a company should not have to register each and every new contract won with the authorities. If a company signs a deal with the Ministry of Transport, for example, it is up to the Ministry to inform the other business counterparts of that company that the contract has been signed.