Lebanon inaugurates new airport as it taps IFC to support private push in aviation sector

Lebanon is turning to private capital to overhaul its aviation — and has opened a northern airport that doubles as a hedge against war. The government signed the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) to structure a public-private partnership (PPP) to rehabilitate, expand, finance, operate and maintain Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport, the IFC’s Khawaja Aftab Ahmed said at the signing.

Days earlier, Lebanon opened a second hub — the Rene Mouawad Airport at Qlayaat in the north — where the IFC is also advising and a PPP is similarly on the table.

Qlayaat is part economic lifeline, part geographic hedge. The north is among Lebanon’s poorest regions — poverty runs as high as 70% in areas like Akkar — and a working airport is meant to pull in activity and jobs. It also gives the country somewhere to fly if strikes shut Beirut, keeping the sector moving when the main hub can’t.

IN CONTEXT- The IFC is doing a lot of advisory on airports in MENA+. It’s already workingwith Egypt on a plan to offer 11 airports for PPP, and it backed the Baghdad International Airport deal awarded last year to a consortium led by Luxembourg’s Corporation America Airports.