A German company, ICM, has won the bid Ethiopian Airlines put up for the construction a new cargo terminal at the airline’s hub at the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport.
Tewolde Gebremariam, Ethiopian CEO, said that a German and Chinese company has been bidding. “Finally we selected ICM. They presented the best design and offer,” Tewolde said. ICM will work with Varnero, the renowned Italian construction firm.
Ethiopian inaugurated the existing cargo terminal, which has the capacity to accommodate 350,000 ton.
“At that time it was considered as a big cargo terminal. But now it is saturated,” Tewolde said. According to Tewolde back then the airline used to haul 43,000 tons of cargo per year. Now the airline transports 182,000 tons. The planned state of the art cargo terminal will accommodate 1.2 million tons. The project will have two phases each having 600,000 ton capacity. The cost of the first phase is €110 million.
The project will be built by vendor financing (the contractor will bring the financing). ICM has come with a South African Bank. Tewolde said negotiation with the bank has already started. Ethiopian is also building a perishable cargo terminal at a cost of 65 million birr.
In related news a Chinese company, AVIC, has won the maintenance hangar bid Ethiopian Airlines floated. Tewolde said a French company and AVIC have been bidding and the management finally selected AVIC. AVIC is already undertaking soil test work. According to Tewolde the total cost of the project is 95 million dollar. “This is also a vendor financing and negotiation with the Chinese EXIM bank is being finalised,” the CEO said. Ethiopian has two maintenance hangars. MIDROC Construction built the second maintenance hangar in 2006. AVIC formerly called CATIC built the Cargo terminal in 2006.
Tewolde said Ethiopian may cancel the five star hotel construction bid. Ethiopian plans to build a five star hotel near its headquarters in Addis Ababa. “The bid includes design, construction and management. We have two finalists. But we are not happy with the design. We may cancel the bid and retender it,” Tewolde said.
