Ministry of Transport has chosen the scheme for consolidating the Moscow airports and solving the problem connected with financing of their aerodrome facilities, Kommersant reports.
The follow-up meeting regarding development of the airports of Moscow Air Cluster was held in the Ministry of Transport on Tuesday by ex-Minister of Transport and today’s counselor to the President, Igor Levitin, and the Minister of Transport, Oleg Belozerov. The representatives of Federal Air Transport Agency have participated in the meeting. In accordance with the instruction of the First vice-premier, Igor Shuvalov, they have been considering different variants of financing mechanisms for modernization and construction of state-owned runways. The representatives of Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo and Domodedovo have also taken part in the meeting.
As reported by participants of this meeting, the scheme was chosen and it would be submitted to Igor Shuvalov for approval soon. The scheme assumes the establishment of new joint-stock company, which will be managing the state-owned assets of the Moscow airports: runways and aprons of the three airports along with government’s stakes – Sheremetyevo (83% of shares) and Vnukovo (74,7% — Vnukovo and 25% — Vnukovo International Airport). Domodedovo will still be able to rent its runways and aprons.
The registered capital of the new company is assessed at 200 billion rubles (110 billion are accounted for the airfield infrastructure). The ideologues of this scheme believe that such a large state company may easily take out loans for development of the infrastructure. The attraction of private investors (including companies with foreign capital) is entirely possible in future.
We remind you that the working group of Ministry of Transport was not only considering the scheme for consolidation of Moscow airports, but also the possibilities for construction and modernization of runways on terms of concessions on May 3rd. However, the officials have acknowledged that there are only two successful examples of concessions in the area of runways – China and Columbia. And now they say that the idea of concessions paled into insignificance. The sources say that top-management of Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo’s private stockholders support the project developed by the Ministry of Transport.
It would take the adjustment of presidential edict N2284 from 1993 to implement the approved scenario, because the edict contains a list of objects unliable to privatization, which includes the airfields of federal significance. So the new presidential edict is required to exclude Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo from this list.
Judicial and financial base for implementation of the scheme will be elaborated by June 1st and then it will be presented to Igor Shuvalov. At best all the procedures may be completed by mid-July.