Together with its Turkish partner TAV Airports, Groupe ADP has started discussions to acquire the airport of Almaty, Kazakhstan, via a consortium which VPE Capital is part of. Negotiations with “the owner of Almaty International Airport” could end in “the upcoming weeks or months”, states Groupe ADP.

Almaty Airport — which has welcomed approximately 6 million passengers in 2018 — serves the economic capital of Kazakhstan, “the biggest landlocked country in the world with 2.7 million square km” and is already “the driver of economic growth in the region, and stands for 60% of Central Asia's GDP”. Moreover, Almaty is also one of the essential gateways of the Chinese strategic project Belt and Road Initiative. In the coming years, Almaty Airport could become one of the major air hubs.

These discussions led by Groupe ADP and TAV Airports also follows Kazakhstan’s recent decision to open 11 airports to international air traffic without restrictions. These 11 platforms, including Almaty, are now open to any foreign airline wishing to develop a network on all routes not operated by Kazakh carriers. Several airlines have already positioned, especially on Almaty, such as Qatar Airways, Emirates, China Eastern (Shanghai), AirAsia and Singapore Airlines. On the European side, LOT Polish Airlines wants to connect Warsaw to Almaty. And that's just a start.