Sri Lanka’s state-run airport management firm has invited proposals from reputed companies to study the feasibility of expanding the Jaffna International Airport (JIA) but not from countries adjacent to Colombo’s Flight Information Region (FIR)—India, the Maldives, Indonesia, and Australia—citing a conflict of interest.
Separately, Airport and Aviation Services of Sri Lanka Ltd. (AASL) has extended till March 18, 2025, the deadline to receive bids from Japanese companies for
the construction and completion of the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) Development Project Phase II Stage 2-Package A1.
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)-funded project includes building and completing the
main terminal building, two new piers, and associated works such as an elevated roadway. The original deadline expired on Tuesday.
The deadline for the Jaffna International Airport project closes on January 29, 2025. Bids are called from airport consultancy firms or joint ventures that have carried out (on time) at least one feasibility study within the immediate past ten years for an international airport development project for which work has been completed or is ongoing.
The advertisement says the consultancy firm shall not be based in or be of origin of “countries that share adjacent to Colombo FIR in order to avoid a conflict of interest”.
Meanwhile, the BIA expansion project—with an anticipated construction period of 30 months—was beset by problems but is now back on track, particularly after Sri Lanka concluded debt restructuring agreements.
Under the original contract, won by Japan’s Taisei Corporation, work started in December 2020 and was scheduled to be completed by December 2023. But the project was terminated in December 2022 “due to economic conditions that prevailed in the country” that year, the AASL states. (JICA froze funding to all of its Sri Lankan projects).
At the time of termination, progress was at just six percent. The re-advertised invitation is for the completion of the balance scope with materials and equipment already purchased by Taisei, also offered to the entity that wins the contract.
While Sri Lanka has an existing JICA loan to fund part of the cost of construction, the government has officially requested additional funding from the agency. This is under consideration by the Japanese government and JICA, AASL says.