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Eric Ng

The Chongqing municipal government plans to spend 20 billion yuan (HK$22.68 billion)  adding three runways  over the next 11 years to  increase the annual passenger capacity of the city's Jiangbei international airport  almost sixfold to 60 million, according to vice-mayor Huang Qifan.
The expansion plan comes  as southwest China's largest city seeks to increase the pace of industrialisation and urbanisation and expects growth in international traffic to soar after  declining in the second half of last year because of the global economic slowdown.
'The Civil Aviation Administration of China's  positioning for us is that we will have an annual passenger throughput capacity of 25 million just after 2012, between 30 million and 40 million by 2015 and 60 million by 2020,'  Mr Huang told a business luncheon last week.
The 19-year-old airport's passenger throughput  rose threefold in six years to  11 million last year, Mr Huang said. 
As it has exceeded its designed capacity of 8 million passengers, the airport is building a second runway and a third  passenger terminal  to raise capacity to 15 million by the end of next year.
Mr Huang said a third and a fourth runway  were on the drawing board and  expected to be built by 2015 and 2020, respectively.
 The three runways and terminal expansion were estimated to cost 20 billion yuan, he  said.
 Jiangbei  was the mainland's eighthlargest airport by passenger throughput last year. The largest is Beijing Capital International Airport, which has a capacity of 82 million passengers and handled 55.7 million last year. Capital Airports Holding, the parent of Hong Kong-listed Beijing Capital International Airport, owns and operates Jiangbei airport.
Mr Huang expected Jiangbei  to become the sixth-busiest mainland airport by 2012.
In first two months of this year, its overall throughput grew 16 per cent, the mainland's fastest rate,  he said. The airport is less exposed to the overseas economic turmoil, as its traffic is  mainly domestic.
Mainland air passenger throughput grew 17.6 per cent year on year in January to 17.47 million passengers, according to the CAAC.
 Domestic passenger traffic  increased 13.47 per cent last month, but international volume dropped 20.06 per cent, CAAC director-general Li Jiaxiang said last week.
Meanwhile, Mr Huang said the Chongqing government  was pushing for the establishment of private  equity funds  with total capital of 30 billion yuan to 50 billion yuan.
Etech Securities is setting up a fund that   aims to raise 5 billion yuan, of which 2 billion yuan will be from overseas investors, 1 billion yuan from Chongqing investors and  the remainder  from other mainland sources.
Three other private equity funds,  capitalised at 2 billion yuan to 3 billion yuan,   are being planned to fund technology projects. 
 Three more funds of 4 billion yuan to 5 billion yuan each  would be launched in the  first half. They  were led by a domestic bank, a domestic asset management firm and an overseas private equity fund,  Mr Huang said, without naming them.
Chongqing has also been selected by  the State Council to set up the mainland's first over-the-counter stock market. 
'The China Securities Regulatory Commission is coming up with the implementation plan ... the market's establishment may be realised next year,'  Mr Huang said.
Gearing up
City targets passenger capacity of 60 million for  airport by 2020
 Passenger throughput at Jiangbei  increased threefold in six years to: 11m



Chongqing plans 20b yuan expansion for Jiangbei airport