Kuwait awards $4.8bn airport project

Kuwait City - Kuwait on Monday awarded a contract worth 1.4bn dinar ($4.8bn) to a local company for the expansion of the country's only international airport, an official statement said.

The central tenders committee announced on its website that the contract, one of the oil-rich state's mega projects, was awarded to Kharafi National, Kuwait's leading construction firm.

Under the contract, a new terminal for Kuwait International Airport and a new runway will be built in addition to around 30 gates to boost the facility's capacity from the current seven million passengers to 13 million in 2016.

The capacity is slated to increase to 25 million passengers by 2025.