A new international airport has begun construction near Tashkent

Shavkat Mirziyoyev familiarized himself with the project of the new international airport in the Tashkent region and gave a start to its construction, the presidential press service reports.

The President stated that the development of transport infrastructure and the modernization of air communications will remain among the priority areas. In the next five years, the number of aircraft in the fleet will reach 180, the number of routes — 230, and the volume of domestic and international flights will increase to 200 thousand per year. The implementation of measures to develop airport infrastructure based on public-private partnerships will be consistently continued.

Ultimately, we aim to turn Uzbekistan into a major aviation hub connecting East and West, North and South, — Shavkat Mirziyoyev emphasized.

The construction of a new international airport will create a solid foundation for this. Over the past eight years, the passenger flow to the capital has tripled and reached 9 million people a year, and by 2040 it will exceed 24 million. However, the existing airport, designed for 11 million passengers per year and located within the city limits, cannot be expanded.

Therefore, taking into account the proposals of leading international experts and the opinions of the general public, a decision was made to build a new international airport on an area of 1,300 hectares in the territory of the Urtachirchik and Kuyichirchik districts. The project, implemented jointly with the international consortium of Saudi Arabia’s Vision Invest, Japan’s Sojitz, and South Korea’s Incheon, includes four stages.

At the first stage, the airport terminal complex and airfield will be built at a cost of $2.5 million. Upon completion of construction, the airport will be able to serve up to 20 million passengers and 129 thousand tons of cargo annually, perform up to 30 takeoffs and landings per hour, use 14 telescopic ramps, and simultaneously accommodate 62 aircraft. The new airport will fully comply with the requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization for service quality, flight safety, and technical regulation.

It will be equipped with the most modern air navigation and meteorological systems, which will allow it to receive aircraft in any weather conditions. Special attention was paid to environmental standards: the new airport will be the first in the region to comply with the principles of “green” construction. A duty free zone with an area of 46 thousand square meters is provided in the terminal. The construction of the airport will become part of the formation of a multimodal transport hub.

The new complex will be directly connected to the Tashkent-Samarkand, Tashkent-Andijan, and Tashkent-Bostanlyk highways. A modern railway station will also be built here, and high-speed trains will begin operating, and shuttle transport will be established between the centers of Tashkent and New Tashkent. The project is expected to bring the country over $27 billion in revenue, contribute to the further development of the service sector, industry, and tourism, and create thousands of new jobs.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev thanked the foreign partners, representatives of financial institutions and tourism companies who attended the event. He expressed high confidence in the engineers and builders involved in the project implementation. The President laid the first stone in the foundation of the new Tashkent International Airport and officially launched its construction.