Travel
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Amílcar Cabral International Airport on the island of Sal is going to be expanded. Mário Paixão, administrative council president of Airport and Air Security Company ASA, presented Prime Minister José Maria Neves, Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Manuel Inocêncio Sousa and Economy Minister João Pereira Silva with the global project for the transformation of Cape Verde into a gateway to Africa for passenger and cargo transport. In this sense, ASA, in addition to investing in new international airports in Praia, Boa Vista and São Vicente, presented a new project today for the expansion of Amílcar Cabral airport. According to Sousa, the project will be carried out in three phases: the first will begin shortly and run until 2008, while the second phase will get started in 2013 and the third in 2023.
The first phase in the expansion of the Sal airport will, according to the Minister of Infrastructures and Transportation, Manuel Inocêncio Sousa, cost some 2 billion escudos, and will begin immediately, with ASA and the government already working on the preparation of the first investment package, which consists of a study phase. By 2008, ASA will expand the cargo and passenger terminals and make improvements in the parking lot, among other things. , Various partners are participating in the undertaking, among them the government of the United States, which, as is known, has made considerable investments in Cape Verdes civil aviation sector, contributing towards the elevation of Amílcar Cabral Airport to security category 1 for the US Federal Aviation Administration, meaning it may receive and send planes directly to the United States. The United States has also assisted ASA in the viability studies of the project being carried out since last year. , ASA makes an optimistic forecast for the future of the company, and believes that there will be a considerable increase in passenger and cargo air traffic in 2004, the Sal airport registered more than 1 million passengers for the first time. , During the act, Sousa reinforced the desire expressed yesterday by Prime Minister José Maria Neves to transform Cape Verde into a point of entry to Africa, a hub for passengers and cargo and an important platform for business and services in the air and marine transportation sectors. , Cape Verdes Minister of Infrastructures and Transportation believes that these investments prove that this ambition is more than just a mere idea, but rather a project. In Sousas opinion, air and marine transportation should be developed together, because they give each other potential. |
