AfDB approves $272mn loan to Tanzania to construct international airport near Dodoma

The African Development Bank's board of directors recently approved USD 272.12 million loan to Tanzania. The objective of this loan is to construct a new international airport in Dodoma.

The funding package from the African Development Bank comprises USD 198.6 million loan from the Bank, USD 23.52 million from the African Development Fund and USD 50 million in co-financing with the Africa Growing Together Fund. The new airport will be built in the district of Msalato, 12 kilometres from Dodoma.

The project involves the construction of high-capacity airport infrastructure to meet the expected growth in air transport from the city's new role as the administrative capital of Tanzania. Work will be carried out over four years and will include a passenger terminal, a runway, air navigation equipment. The project includes other related operational services such as a fuel distribution company, water supply systems, electrical power distribution substations and a fire-fighting service.

"An expanded air transport network in Dodoma, together with the ongoing high-speed railway construction on the central corridor, are necessary infrastructure investments to help unlock and disperse spatial development in the countryside. This will strengthen the city's potential as a strategic growth pole in keeping with Tanzania' national development aspirations of fostering shared growth for all the regions," Amadou Oumarou, the Director of the Bank's Infrastructure and Urban Development Department opined.

The new facility is expected to handle at least 50,000 aircrafts and a million passengers per year, most of which will be international. It will benefit and serve more than 200 million passengers in East Africa, as well as international trade networks, and especially business travellers and tourists.