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Iraq’s Ministry of Transport and the General Company for Airport & Air Navigation Services have released a tender inviting firms to bid for a contract to develop Baghdad International airport on a public-private partnership (PPP) basis.

The notice was issued in July, and the submission deadline is in September.

According to an official statement posted on its website, Iraq’s Ministry of Transport said that 10 out of 14 international consortiums that expressed interest in the project earlier this year have been prequalified to compete for the tender.

The scope of the estimated $400m-$600m project involves rehabilitating, expanding, financing, operating and maintaining the airport. It is the first airport PPP project to be launched in Iraq.

The initial capacity of the airport is expected to be around 9 million passengers, which will be gradually increased to 15 million passengers.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, is the project’s lead transaction adviser.

Iraq is already developing the Baghdad and Najaf-Karbala metro projects using a similar PPP model.

Earlier this month, MEED reported that Iraq intends to retender the contract to develop and operate the Baghdad Metro project, following the award of the estimated $2.5bn contract last year.

According to local media reports, Nasser Al-Assadi, adviser to Prime Minister Mohammed Sudani, stated that the previous developers had overestimated the project budget; therefore, the government will relaunch the entire process to implement the project.