The Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment in­sist­ing that it has no plans to sell the Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port Inc. (GA­IA), says a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing (MOU) has been signed with the Of­fice of Sheikh Ahmed Dal­mook Al Mak­toum of Dubai and Agen­cias Uni­ver­sales S.A. of Chile for a pub­lic, pri­vate part­ner­ship (PPP) for the in­vest­ment, de­vel­op­ment and op­er­a­tion of the air­port.

The MOU will al­so al­low for a hemi­spher­ic hub for car­go, ex­pand­ed air­lift and ad­di­tion­al lux­u­ry ho­tel ca­pac­i­ty.

“We are ex­cit­ed about the prospect of more jobs, train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion across the eco-sys­tem of the air­port, air­port ser­vices, and tourism sec­tors. I know that change can be un­set­tling, even if pos­i­tive, so a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of this po­ten­tial PPP is that there will be no change in the own­er­ship of our air­port and no change in the terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ees,” said Tourism and In­ter­na­tion­al Trans­port Min­is­ter Ian Good­ing-Edghil.

“ We have al­so tried hard to keep all work­ers and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives up­dat­ed and con­sult­ed about de­vel­op­ments, op­por­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges. I com­mit to con­tin­ue to do so and keep the pub­lic up­dat­ed.”

Edghill said that to­wards that end he will an­nounce a town hall meet­ing short­ly to present the plan and an­swer any ques­tions Bar­ba­di­ans may have as he thanked the Gov­ern­ment’s Ne­go­ti­at­ing Com­mit­tee, and its Chair­man, Avinash Per­saud, “for get­ting us here”.

GA­IA chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Hadley Bourne said his team have spent many months dis­cussing with the po­ten­tial new part­ners at com­mer­cial and tech­ni­cal lev­els.

“I can vouch for their ex­per­tise and un­der­stand­ing of our is­sues, chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties. I am pleased that we have a strong in­vest­ment plan to main­tain and up­grade the air­port. I be­lieve vis­i­tors, staff and Bar­ba­di­ans will ap­pre­ci­ate the dif­fer­ences they will see in a cou­ple of years,” he said.

Al Mak­toum said “we are very pleased to col­lab­o­rate with the gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos on this project. We are look­ing for­ward to pos­i­tive­ly con­tribut­ing to the econ­o­my of Bar­ba­dos by cre­at­ing jobs, im­prov­ing air­port in­fra­struc­ture and fa­cil­i­ties and pro­mot­ing tourism in the coun­try.”

The Agen­cias Uni­ver­sales S.A. CEO, Fer­nan­do Ro­driguez, al­so ex­pressed ex­cite­ment at the part­ner­ship, adding “we are com­mit­ted to the suc­cess of this project and mak­ing every Bar­ba­di­an proud of their air­port and the up­grades to come.”

A state­ment post­ed on the Gov­ern­ment In­for­ma­tion Ser­vice (GIS) said that the Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment is keen for more and bet­ter em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for all Bar­ba­di­ans.

“In the in­ter­na­tion­al trans­port sec­tor, this can on­ly come through an in­vest­ment in Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port of ap­prox­i­mate­ly BDS$300 mil­lion (One Bar­ba­dos dol­lar=US$0.50 cents) that im­proves the cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence, up­grades the in­fra­struc­ture, de­vel­ops re­tail rev­enues, a hemi­spher­ic car­go hub, and links these in­vest­ments with ini­tia­tives for new air­lift and ho­tel ca­pac­i­ty.”

The state­ment said that the Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment recog­nis­es that with­out sub­stan­tial in­vest­ment, the air­port will not be able to main­tain stan­dards and cer­ti­fi­ca­tions in the long run.

“At the same time, the Gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos is in a debt-re­duc­tion pro­gramme to safe­guard the val­ue of the Bar­ba­dos dol­lar. As a re­sult of that pro­gramme, the ra­tio of na­tion­al debt to na­tion­al in­come peaked at 176.8 per cent in 2018 and, de­spite the pan­dem­ic, is now at 119.6 per cent – al­most halfway to the long-run sus­tain­able tar­get of 60 per cent.”

But the gov­ern­ment said that “this track leaves lit­tle room” on its bal­ance sheet for sub­stan­tial ad­di­tion of debt for re­quired air­port in­vest­ments.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos al­so has no de­sire, un­der any cir­cum­stances, to sell the Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. Con­se­quent­ly, the best av­enue for new in­vest­ment is a Pub­lic-Pri­vate Part­ner­ship which brings in­vest­ment and in­ter­na­tion­al air­port man­age­ment ex­pe­ri­ence and ex­per­tise in re­turn for shar­ing air­port rev­enues.”

It said that the pro­posed PPP fol­lows the ear­li­er MOU be­tween the Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) that looked to­wards clos­er com­mer­cial in­ter­ests, es­pe­cial­ly in the trans­port and trav­el sec­tors.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos is pleased that in The Of­fice of H.H. Sheikh Ahmed Dal­mook Al Mak­toum, it has found a part­ner with the shared pri­or­i­ties of pro­tect­ing and ex­pand­ing na­tion­al em­ploy­ment through in­vest­ment, train­ing, ser­vice ex­cel­lence and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, em­ploy­ee and cus­tomer safe­ty, net-ze­ro tar­gets, high­er rev­enue growth and bet­ter in­te­gra­tion be­tween air­port-car­go-air lift and ho­tels.”

It said that the part­ner group has sub­stan­tial ex­pe­ri­ence in air­port pas­sen­ger and car­go op­er­a­tions in over 20 coun­tries across three con­ti­nents.

“In ad­di­tion to the ap­prox­i­mate­ly BDS$300m to be in­vest­ed in the air­port by the Of­fice of H.H. Sheikh Ahmed Dal­mook Al Mak­toum of Dubai, The Of­fice is com­mit­ted to co­or­di­nat­ing and fa­cil­i­tat­ing in­vest­ments in new ho­tels and air­lift”

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Jul 19, CMC

CMC/af/ir/2023