Economic Minister Muhammad Saeed have said that the airport of the Maldivians, Velana International Airport will be the greatest airport in the world once it is developed.
Speaking at the ceremony held today to initiate the development of the second runway at Velana International Airport the minister said that even if we look at the tourism industry of Maldives it is an example for the rest of the world and the airport will be an asset that will facilitate to further develop the tourism industry.
In addition, he said that the VIP lounge at the airport is the most advanced VIP lounge in the whole region and a better VIP lounge will be developed this year. He also said that with the new international franchises the airport will be greater than ever.
The minister said that development of the airport started as soon as President Yameen assumed office. He said that on average 1.8 million Rufiyaa was spent by MACL every day to develop the airport.
Furthermore, he said that when Maldivians got back the airport from GMR it was in a really bad shape and even the flights that operated to Maldives had to be downgraded. He said that however now MACL has upgraded facilities and resolved these problems. The minister said that the work of the new terminal is also going on and the work of the terminal will finish as per the schedule.
The new runway will be 3400-meter-long and 65 meters wide. China Beijing Construction are conducting the project. China provided a soft loan of 373 million dollars for this project.
The minister said that it was Ibrahim Nasir who developed an airport for Maldivians and it was President Yameen who got back the airport for Maldivians when MDP gave it away to GMR. He said that the work that is going on now is to make the airport one of the greatest airports in the world. The runway project was officially initiated by President Yameen.