September 7 (SeeNews) - The World Bank considers the public-private partnership (PPP) to be a good model for the management of Montenegro's international airports in Tivat and Podgorica, the bank's executive director Frank Heemskerk has said.
"The management of airports with public money is very expensive. A public-private partnership is a good way to increase both the traffic and the value of the airports, while public financing can be spent on the construction of schools, for example," Heemskerk has said, according to a Montenegrin government press release issued on Thursday.
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The Tivat and Podgorica airports have a large growth potential but currently they represent a bottleneck for further development, Montenegrin prime minister Dusko Markovic said during a meeting with Heemskerk.
"We want to change this in the shortest possible time, so we have made sure that the International Finance Corporation (IFC) is our partner," Markovic said.
Foreign investors have shown serious interest towards Tivat and Podgorica airports and the government plans to make an analysis with the cooperation of the IFC, the World Bank's private sector arm, to define a model for their future development, Markovic said in December.