Maputo — Mozambique’s publicly owned airports company, ADM, on Thursday signed a contract with the consultancy company DHV, under which DHV will draw up a project for the rehabilitation of the Maputo airport runway, taxiways, apron and lighting system.

According to the chairperson of the ADM board, Manuel Veterano, cited in Friday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, the detailed project design should be concluded within six months. ADM will then launch the tender to select the contractor who will carry out the work, as from early 2014.

The contract with DHV is budgeted at 500,000 US dollars. This is part of the 1.6 million dollars made available by the French Development Agency (AFD) for costs of preparing the rehabilitation of airport infrastructures.

Work on the runway, taxiways and apron is the third stage of the rehabilitation of Maputo International Airport. Under the first two stages, the airport was endowed with completely new international, domestic and cargo terminals.

Alongside the modernization of Maputo Airport, ADM is also transforming what used to be a military air base at the northern port of Nacala into an international airport.

The new Nacala airport should be complete by the end of 2013. The contractor is the Brazilian company Norberto Odebrecht, and the cost of the airport is 114 million dollars, financed by the Mozambican and Brazilian governments as well as by ADM itself.