The Thai government signed a contract on Friday worth 290 billion baht with U-Tapao Company International Aviation (UCIA) consortium for the development of “U-Tapao Airport and Eastern Aviation City.”
The aviation hub is expected to open by 2024.
The companies in the joint venture include Bangkok Airways (45 per cent of the shares), BTS Group Holdings (35 per cent) and Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction or STEC (20 per cent).
The consortium is led by BTS Group Holdings with a registered capital of 4.5 billion baht.
BBS Joint Venture Group won the bidding for the project after the cabinet approved it on June 2. The EEC Office then signed the investment agreement on Friday.
The aviation city is expected to cover a 30-kilometres area surrounding the airport from Pattaya to Rayong. The project is foreseen to create 15,600 jobs in the first five years.
U-Tapao airport received around 1.9 million visitors per year before the coronavirus outbreak and it is connected to 24 cities, including all ten ASEAN countries.
Narita International Airport Corporation had been selected to manage the airport.
The airport development is part of Thailand’s five mega-projects to redevelop the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) with an estimated budget of 1.7 trillion baht.
The aim for the development of the airport is to make U-Tapao one of the three major international airports in Thailand after Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang in Bangkok. The goal is to increase its capacity to 60 million people per year.
Another one of EEC’s mega-projects is a 220-kilometre rail link worth 200 billion baht to connect all three of these airports together.
The construction of the 290 billion baht projects is expected to start in two months. The first of a four-step process is expected to be completed in three years.
[Photo Courtesy of U-Tapao International Airport]