SARAJEVO (Bosnia and Herzegovina), May 14 (SeeNews) – The government of Bosnia's Federation entity said it has allocated 10.6 million marka ($6.1 million/5.4 million euro) to three airports on its territory to support the development of domestic air transport.
The international airports in Tuzla and Mostar, along with the airport in Bihac, will each receive 3.535 million marka of government funds, the Federation government said in a statement last week after its regular meeting.
Bihac airport will use the funds build a test section of its runway and to finance ongoing land expropriations, local daily Nezavisne Novine quoted airport director Elvedin Sedic as saying.
Sedic also said the Federation government has invested some 8.0 million marka in the construction of the airport in the past several years. According Sedic, the entire project will cost at least 50 million marka and the airport operator should decide in the coming period how to finance it.
"From the very beginning we have said we are interested in any form of public-private partnership or in a private investor building the whole complex with own funds," Sedic said.
Bihac, in northwestern Bosnia, now has only a small sports airport. The Federation government decided back in 2016 that it will work towards building a bigger airport for civilian flights at its site which will help boost the economy of the region.
(1 euro = 1.95583 marka)