Construction of Gwadar airport begins

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The construction of the New Gwadar International Airport (NGIA) has begun, the Chairman of the China Pakistani Economic Corridor (CPEC) Authority and Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting, Lt. Gen (rtd) Asim Saleem Bajwa, shared on May 8.

All pending issues had been resolved and the stuck up containers comprising machinery for the NGIA project got cleared from the Gwadar Port, General Asim Bajwa tweeted. 

He further pointed out that labour force has been mobilized at the site and the briefing on SoPs on COVID-19 for them also conducted, mentioning that the NGIA project cost would be $ 230 million. 

It may be recalled that Prime Minister Imran Khan had performed the ground breaking ceremony of the NGIA in March last year.

“What a pleasure it is to be in Gwadar. In the coming months, years, Gwadar would be, I see, as engine of growth for Pakistan,” the Prime Minister had stated in his speech on the occasion. 

Upon its completion in 2022, the NGIA, to be operated by Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA), will become the biggest international airport of Pakistan which will also have the capacity to handle the world’s largest passenger aircraft, Airbus A 380. 

The construction of the NGIA happens to be one of several development projects being funded by the Chinese government as part of the CPEC, a cornerstone of China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative.

The NGIA was initiated as an early harvest high-priority project of the CPEC programme in 2014. It was approved by the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) in January 2015. 

The airport will be located 26km north-east of the existing airport in Gwadar City on the south-western Arabian Sea coast of Balochistan region. 

The land acquired for the airport is situated in Gurandani, next to the Makran Coastal Highway. 

Planned to be spread over an area of 4,300 acres, it will also have the provision to build a second runway, which will be located north of the main runway.