MAHB Eyes Managing Five More Airports Overseas

SEPANG (Selangor, Malaysia), March 4 (Bernama) -- Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) is keen to manage five more airports overseas, including the King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Its Managing Director, Badlisham Ghazali, said the airport operator will submit proposals to manage two airports by year-end. "One will be submitted for the Jeddah airport," he said after the launch of Eraman Shopping Extravaganza campaign, which started from March 1 until Feb 2, 2017, here Thursday. MAHB was among the three bidders for the airport, which is the busiest airport in Saudi Arabia. It is situated 19km to the north of Jeddah. "We have a five-year plan for MAHB and we are looking for opportunity everywhere except North America," he said. MAHB had 12 years' experience in managing airports in Malaysia as well as those in Maldives, Cambodia, Kazakhstan and Istanbul, Turkey. On its duty-free business segment, Badlisham said, MAHB was confident of achieving double-digit growth this year backed by its aggressive campaigns as well as the visa-free entry for Chinese tourists to Malaysia. "Last year, MAHB's duty-free business segment recorded nine per cent growth and in the first two months of 2016 it recorded 15 per cent growth. "Annually, the duty-free business segment contributed on average between US$144.94 million (RM600 million) and US$169.14 million (RM700 million) in revenue and Eraman Shopping Extravaganza campaign was expected to contribute another US$4.05 million (RM16.8 million)," he said.(US$1=RM4.13) -- BERNAMA