Chinese construction giant pledges to transform four Nigerian airports

Chinese construction giant - China Civil Engineering Construction Corporations (CCECC) has pledged to execute four major airport transformation projects in Nigeria.

This pledge was made during a meeting held with a delegation led by Aviation Minister - Minister Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah. The delegation is in China as part of President Goodluck Jonathan's State Visit. Also on the delegation were: Chairman of the Senate Committee on Aviation - Senator Hope Uzodinma; Senior Special Assistant to the President on Aviation Sector Reforms - Ms Anne Ene-Ita; Vice Chairman, House Committee on Aviation - Hon. Ahmed Rufai Chanchangi; Representative of the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Aviation - Mr Clement Dosunmo; Director General of NIMET, Dr Anthony Anuforom; and Managing Director of NAMA, Mazi Nnamdi Udoh.

The pledge is expected to be backed by a signed confirmation before the end of the State Visit on Friday.

Terminals at Abuja, Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt International airports will now be constructed by CCECC in a record time of 20 months. The deal was arranged following a Presidential tour of the CCECC corporate HQ in Beijing, where President of the company Yuan Li stated that the work would be conducted to the highest international standard.

Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Orubebe, expressed his desire to see CCECC working more extensively in Nigeria, including on the East-West and Oron-Calabar road projects. The company is the largest Chinese firm in Nigeria, with a local staff strength of around 20,000 and an expatriate quota of 1,000 Chinese citizens. Yuan Li expressed gratitude to President Goodluck Jonathan and his government for having supported the company, adding that he looked forward to helping establish a special friendship between Nigeria and China.

Yuan Li also stressed, in response to a concern raised by Senator Idris Umar, that the company has already made strategic investments in real estate development in Nigeria, and intends to expand its investments in the country into manufacturing of cement, steel, and the construction of sea ports, railways and roads. The company, he said, is also moving to incorporate a Nigeria branch of its business, with a reduced Chinese staff complement, which would offer technical scholarships in Chinese universities – a scheme that would add to the existing scholarships available to African students at Chinese universities, which number around 12,000 annually. He said that CCECC also intends to set up a Joint Venture (JV) with the Nigerian government for the operation and maintenance of the railways, and would soon commence construction work for CCECC plazas in Abuja and Lagos.