Indonesia's North Bali Airport construction moves closer, but confusion remains over financing

A new reliever airport for the Indonesian tourist island of Bali was first mooted in 2015, but became clogged up in the works of government, while the existing Ngurah Rai airport itself became equally clogged up with passengers.

The project has been on and off the National Strategic List (of critical projects) and at one time Ngurah Rai was a preferred option to receive a second runway instead, while later it ended up on a list (of half of Indonesia's airports) to lose its international status.

The project survived all those eventualities and regained its vigour, now proposed not as a reliever, but as the main airport for the island and to be capable of handling up to 50mppa, eventually.

The president is reported to have approved the project recently - but what that means exactly still remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, separate sources have two different Chinese companies being tasked with the turnkey assignment.

It is precisely this degree of uncertainty that has dogged efforts to attract foreign capital to transport infrastructure projects in Asia, and especially those in the airport sector, and despite that being regarded as an imperative by the government.