A venture between Megawide Construction Corp. and India’s GMR Infrastructure emerged as the frontrunner Thursday in a public auction to build a new passenger terminal for Clark International Airport in Pampanga province.
Megawide-GMR, which operates the Mactan Cebu International Airport, bested four other groups, including big state-owned firms in China.
The Duterte administration, through the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, has committed to expand Clark Airport, an underused air gateway it wants to position as an alternative to the congested Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila.
Megawide-GMR was regarded the frontrunner with its offer to build a new terminal in Clark Airport, estimated by the government to cost P12.55 billion, for P9.36 billion.
The lowest qualified bid was the main parameter in Thursday’s auction.
Megawide’s offer was lower than Tokwing Construction Corp. and China Machinery Engineering Corp. (P12.45 billion), China State Construction Engineering Corp. Ltd. (P12.298 billion), China Harbour Engineering Co. Ltd. (P11.73 billion) and Sinohydro Corp. Ltd. (P10.68 billion).
Jake Bingcang, chair of the BCDA special bids and awards committee, said Megawide-GMR’s offer would still be subject to further review in the next few days. He said an award could be ready by Dec. 18, 2017, with groundbreaking of the project set by Dec. 20.
The BCDA is targeting to finish the new passenger terminal, which would bring Clark Airport’s existing capacity of four million passenger annually to 12 million passengers, by 2020.
The expansion of Clark International Airport is the first hybrid public-private partnership project rolled out under the Duterte administration.
Under this scheme, the government will finance the construction of the terminal while the private sector will later be invited for the operations and maintenance (O&M) component.
Bingcang said they were eyeing the O&M component to be awarded on March 2018.