The new Baiyun International Airport in Guangzhou, one of China's southern gates to the outside world, will be ready for service by late October 2003.

Lin Yunxian, deputy general manager of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport Co. Ltd, said two runways have been completed, providing 860,000 square meters of tarmac capable of handling 60 planes at a time.

The new airport, designed by Parsons Corp. and URS Greiner Corp, both of the United States, and the Guangdong Provincial Architectural Design Institute, can accommodate the world's largest planes, such as the Boeing 747.

Located in the city of Huadu, the new facility will cover an area of 1,456 hectares, about four times the size of the existing Baiyun Airport, that is situated in the suburbs of Guangzhou and has long been overburdened by increasing passengers and cargo.

The cost estimate of the airport is 19.6 billion yuan (about US$2.36 billion), 49 percent of which will be covered by the Guangzhou Transport Investment Co. Ltd. The first-phase construction will cost about 10 billion yuan (about US$1.2 billion).

By 2010, when the airport is finished, it will be able to handle 80 million arrivals and departures and one million tons of cargo annually.

(People’s Daily 03/05/2001)