ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraq on Tuesday announced the awarding of a contract to rehabilitate, develop, and operate Baghdad International Airport to a consortium of a Luxemboug-based and an Iraqi firm, stipulating that the investors will be expected to spend approximately $764 million on rehabilitating and developing the facility without government funding during the concession period.

"Fourteen coalitions from various nationalities worldwide applied for the rehabilitation and operation of the airport," according to a statement from the Iraqi Prime Minister's Office. 

The winning bid was that of Corporacion America Airports (CAAP) and Iraq’s Amwaj International, which were chosen after the relevant Iraqi authorities concluded that they "provided a better financial offer, stipulating that the central treasury’s share would be (43.05 percent) of the airport’s total annual revenue throughout the concession period."

CAAP operates 52 airports across six countries, according to its website, serving 79 million passengers in 2024. The company's airports are located across Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador, Armenia, and Italy.

Amway International, meanwhile, is an Iraqi real estate firm that has operated across ten countries and managed over $4 billion worth of assets. "We put our own capital to work alongside our partners, aligning interests and bringing the strengths of our operational expertise, global reach and large-scale capital to bear on everything we do," the firm writes on its website.

According to the statement from the premier's office, the winning consortium will be obligated to provide a "modern passenger terminal" with a first-phase capacity of 9 million annual passengers before progressing to a second-phase capacity of 15 million passengers per year, repair runways and taxiways, and build 15 boarding bridges, a modern VIP terminal, and a modern car parking facility, as well as other amenities.

The statement further stipulates that the investors are expected to provide "approximately 1,000 direct job opportunities for every million new passengers" and asserts that "the investor will spend approximately (764) million dollars on airport development, without the government spending a single dollar throughout the concession period."

The Iraqi government in 2023 signed an agreement with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to assist Baghdad in "ensuring the attraction of specialized global companies and preparing the investment prospectus for the airport to be offered for investment."