Publications

The New Lisbon Airport
Banking and Capital Markets
2008-01-22

The construction of a new Lisbon airport (the “New Lisbon Airport “) has been under discussion since the seventies. However, the continuous expansion of the Portela airport, now located in the middle of the city of Lisbon, allowed it to continue to meet the increasing traffic demand.

In July 2005, the government, pressed by the exhaustion of Portela’s capacity, which will no longer meet the demand by the end of 2016, finally announced that the new Lisbon airport would be built.

The main guidelines for the New Lisbon Airport have been approved as well as the model for its construction and operation. Early this year, the location for the New Lisbon Airport was finally decided.

After several studies on the possible locations, the Portuguese Prime Minister announced on the 10th January 2008, that the New Lisbon Airport will be built in Alcochete, on the southern bank of the Tagus River and dismissed the original proposed location in OTA in its northern bank.

The construction of the new airport is one of the main objectives of the Government’s economic programme to promote the growth of the economy and the development of other major PPP projects, worth €25 billion through existing and new PPPs, which are described in the infrastructure investment priorities programme (Programa de Investimentos em Infra-estruturas Prioritárias – the “Priorities Programme”).

This briefing note reviews some of the structural and legal issues regarding the construction of the New Lisbon Airport project, which is now underway.

© 2008 Macedo Vitorino & Associados

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