Construction of a terminal for the new airport in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, will begin in May. According to information from the Baiyun International Airport Group, construction preparations are now complete.

This will mark the start of the first phase of construction of the new Baiyun Airport. The new airport will be built in several stages with designs provided by Parsons Corp. and URS Greiner Corp, two U.S. firms, and the Guangdong Provincial Architectural Design Institute.

It will be located in the city of Huadu, which is under the administration of Guangzhou, and will cover an area of 1,456 hectares, about four times the area of the existing airport.

The facilities of the current Baiyun airport in the near suburbs of Guangzhou is the country's busiest airport, and has long been overburdened by an increasing number of passengers and cargo volume.

The key facilities of the new airport is expected to involve a total investment of 20 billion yuan (about 2.4 billion U.S. dollars), 49 percent of which will be borne by the Guangzhou Transport Investment Co. Ltd..

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

The first-phase construction will cost about 10 billion yuan and will be completed in late 2002.