Nigerian president commissions Chinese-assisted airport terminal in economic hub

ABUJA, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday commissioned the newly-built international terminal at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in the economic hub of Lagos.

The Chinese-assisted project was designed to handle 20 million passengers in a year while creating 3,000 direct and indirect jobs, Buhari said at the commissioning ceremony in Lagos.

"With the delivery of this project, a new era of safety, security, and comfort has been ushered into the Nigerian aviation industry," the Nigerian president said.

He expressed confidence that the new terminal "would go a long way in contributing to the socio-political and economic prosperity of the country."

The facility is one of the four new international airport terminals built in the country's major airports to modernize operation and passenger facilitation. It consists of 66 check-in-counters, 16 immigration desks at arrival, 28 immigration desks at departure, and eight security screening points, among others.

Chinese ambassador to Nigeria Cui Jianchun told Xinhua that the project was very critical to the China-Nigeria cooperation and that infrastructure was of "paramount importance" to the most populous African country.

The project was executed by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), which has been involved in many ongoing infrastructural projects, including rail and road construction in Nigeria.

It was done in partnership with the Chinese government, involving a loan of 500 million U.S. dollars from the Import-Export Bank of China and 100 million dollars in funding from the Nigerian government.