TAV Tunisia

active

Tunisia’s existing airports are either already saturated (Monastir handled 4.2 mn passagers for a nominal capacity of 3.5 mn) or nearing saturation (Tunis Carthage airport). Due to growing tourism, further encouraged by the current negotiations on an open skies agreement with Europe as well as major tourism and industrial developments planned to sustain the country’s growth, the upgrade and expansion of Tunisia’s airport infrastructure is a key Government priority. In 2007, the Government of Tunisia awarded two concessions to TAV of Turkey: - a concession to upgrade and operate the Monastir airport, and - a concession to build, finance and operate a new airport at Enfidha, also located in the Central Eastern part of Tunisia, 45 km away from the Monastir airport. Both airports will serve the major tourism areas of Monastir, Sousse and Hammamet, located on the Mediterranean coast. The decision to build a new airport at Enfidha stemmed from the fact that the Monastir airport cannot be expanded on site, owing to geographical and environmental constraints.TAV created TAV Tunisie, a special purpose company which will be the concessionaire of the two airports. The proposed project is to finance: - the concession for the construction and operation of a new international airport at Enfidha, for an initial capacity of 7 million passengers and - the concession for the operation of the existing Monastir international airport (4.2 million passengers in 2006). The project, with total costs of approx EUR560 million (approximately equivalent to $840 million), will be one the largest recent private sector investments in Tunisia and the 1st airport private sector concession in the Maghreb region.