May 22 (SeeNews) - The UK's Manchester Airports Group (MAG) said on Wednesday that, as part of its bid for a 35-year concession of Sofia Airport, it is proposing to build a new stadium worth 600 million euro ($670 million) near Bulgaria's largest airport.
MAG submitted an offer in the tender for the 35-year contract to run Sofia Airport earlier this month, in a consortium with China's Beijing Construction Engineering Group.
The proposed project is outside the scope of the consortium's main investment offer, which envisages investments of nearly 1.5 million euro, MAG said in a statement.
The construction of the new stadium is part of the consortium's plan to develop the Sofia Airport region by building a stadium, commercial properties, logistics facilities, etc, dubbed Airport City Sofia.
The new stadium, which will meet UEFA's requirements for a category 4 stadium, could potentially benefit the country's planned joint bid with Romania, Serbia and Greece for hosting the FIFA World Cup 2030, MAG said.
In November 2018, after a meeting of Bulgaria-Greece-Romania-Serbia High-level Cooperation Council in the Bulgarian city of Varna, Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic announced that the neighbouring countries plan to submit joint hosting bids for both the UEFA Euro 2028 championship and FIFA World Cup 2030.
Earlier this month, Bulgaria's transport ministry said that the MAG-led consortium offered the highest planned investments in Sofia Airport, but also proposed the lowest concession fee - 19.9 million euro per year.
The tender also attracted bids from four other candidates - Fraport Bulgaria and three consortia. Two of the consortia are led by French companies - Aeroports de Paris (ADP) and Meridiam Eastern Europe Investments, while the third is led by Swiss-based SSB Sauerwein & Schaefer Bau.
The ADP-led tie-up offered the highest concession fee to run Sofia Airport - 32.8 million euro.
Manchester Airports Group operates three airports in Great Britain - Manchester, London Stansted and East Midlands. The combined annual passenger traffic of the three airports totals nearly 60 million.
($ = 0.8959 euro)