www.dailystar.com Tunisia has started to build a new airport near the capital Tunis at a total cost of around 585 million Tunisian dinars ($488 million) to cash in on the growing tourism industry in the Arab state, the Tunisian envoy to Bahrain said.
Ambassador Mohammed Iouiti said that the airport would be the biggest in Tunisia, which now has seven international airports, and comes as part of a five-year development plan that began in 2002 and will end in 2006.
He said the airport will be constructed on the Mediterranean coast by a Tunisian company, and will be completed in 2006.
أ¢â‚¬إ“Certainly, the airport needs foreign investment. The company may seek help from foreign companies,أ¢â‚¬آ Iouiti said when asked who is going to finance the project. He declined to give further details.
أ¢â‚¬إ“The airport will have an initial capacity of 5 million passengers in the first year, rising to 30 million passengers when the project is completed,أ¢â‚¬آ Iouiti said in an interview at the Tunisian embassy.
أ¢â‚¬إ“The new Al-Wassat Airport is located in Enfidha Ville,أ¢â‚¬آ he said. أ¢â‚¬إ“It is just between the cities of Hammamet and Sousse and will be the biggest airport in the country.
أ¢â‚¬إ“The building of the airport is aimed at easing pressure on the Tunis International Airport, extend travel facilities to nearby tourist areas, and providing better services to tourists, especially to European tourists visiting Tunisia,أ¢â‚¬آ he said.
The town of Hammamet is 60 kilometers south of the Tunisian capital Tunis and Sousse is 130 kilometers to the South East.
Both are major tourist attraction sites for the Europeans.
The North African country attracted 4.9 million tourists, mainly from Europe, in 2003, and Iouiti said that current indications show the number of tourists visiting Tunisia will rise by at least five percent in 2004.
أ¢â‚¬إ“This year will be much better than last year,أ¢â‚¬آ he said.
In 2002, Tunisia, like many other tourist destinations, suffered from the global economic slowdown and the fallout from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
An April 2002 bomb attack on a synagogue in Tunisia added to the effect.
Officials said the number of visitors to Tunisia fell by around 20 percent in 2002 from around 5 million in 2001.
Because Tunisia is close to the European Union, most of its tourists come from European countries such as Greece, Italy and France.
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