The Airport Authority has finalised a 1.99 billion yuan deal to jointly run Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, marking the agency's first big investment outside Chek Lap Kok.
The authority, which hopes to sell shares on the stock market this year in a partial privatisation, yesterday said that it would buy a 35 per cent interest in Xiaoshan Airport.
The joint venture will operate the only airport in Hangzhou, an increasingly wealthy city of about 6.5 million people in Zhejiang province about 180km southwest of Shanghai.
The investment, first announced in January, was finalised following talks on how the two sides would jointly manage and operate the airport, which has been transformed from a state-owned limited company into a Sino-foreign joint venture.
The Airport Authority said the aim of its investment was to 'enhance operation efficiency, improve service quality and management standards at Hangzhou airport to bring it to par with top, world-class standards'.
'The project is a milestone for both airports,' authority chairman Victor Fung Kwok-king said.
'Hangzhou and Hong Kong are the major economic engines for their respective regions.
