The Kuwait-based Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development is providing a $360m loan to Sudan to help fund a new airport and two dam projects.

Sudan will use $175m of the loan to fund a new international airport in Khartoum.

In February, China Communications Construction Company won a $1.2bn contract to build the airport (MEED 15:2:11). The work involves constructing a runway long enough to handle Airbus A380 aircraft, a passenger terminal, hangar, control tower and other facilities.

The new airport will eventually replace the existing Khartoum airport when it is completed in 2014.

Another $175m of the loan will go towards financing the development of the Atbara and Seteet dams on the Blue Nile. These projects will be used to irrigate farmland and will have a combined power generation capacity of 200MW. The remaining $10m will fund water projects in the states of Kassala, Al-Qadaref and Red Sea in eastern Sudan.