A PPP tender process for La Aurora Airport (GUA) was floated by the Guatemalan government in June according to local media reports, with a selection process expected to be concluded next year.

GUA is the Central American country’s main international gateway serving the capital, Guatemala City which is situated to the south of the country. The airport is in an urban setting just a few miles from the center of the capital.

Guatemala—whose population is 18 million (about three million of whom reside in Guatemala City’s sprawl)—is flanked to the north by Mexico, to the east by Belize, and to the south by Honduras and El Salvador. The country has a small coastline to the east facing the Caribbean Sea and a longer one to the west facing the North Pacific Ocean.

According to Chile-based BNAmericas, the country’s President Bernardo Arévalo—sworn in in January after a landslide election win last August on an anti-corruption ticket—recently met with interested infrastructure players (though they were not named). On June 18, at an event entitled Airports: Axis of Inclusive Development, the president announced that the government would move forward with a public-private partnership (PPP) tender for GUA.

Two days later at the airport, he held a press conference, recorded here by TN23 Guatelama, where he reiterated the message about tendering for the revamp of GUA. He told media that a PPP for upgrading GUA was on the cards as a way “to allow the government and private sector to face the great challenges the terminal poses together.”