Hahn Airport, known as departure base of Ryanair, is sold to Chinese investors. They want to revive the site with Asian tourists.
For the SPD -guided government of Rheinland-Pfalz could, in any event, if all goes well, go a horror chapter of recent land policy coming to an end. After several months of negotiations, the sale of the majority state-owned airport Hahn in the Hunsrück is perfect. For a not exactly unspecified amount in low tens of millions is once started with oversized expectations Airport to the Chinese company Shanghai Yiqian Trading. Until recently there were two other Chinese interested in the game. Serious investors from Europe had not existed.
No wonder. Because of the Ferienflieger- and cargo airport repurposed with millions Euro former military airbase, which the French army had built after the end of World War II and transferred to the US military, can not survive on their own. 2015 was the annual loss for about 16 million euros, the number of passengers has recently risen slightly, to nearly 2.7 million, for the airport suffered a painful decline in the freight business. After all, the debt of 130 million euros last well have dropped significantly – at the expense of the treasury of the country, the Hahn otherwise never have been able to sell. The hopes that had awakened in the acquisition of 80 percent of the airport 2009, state politicians, have hardly met.
An expertise that the then Prime Minister Kurt Beck (SPD) presented led government, prophesied to 2012 good 6000 jobs at the airport itself, and almost double the number in the low to Jobs surrounding region. From more than nine million passengers a year there was talk of profits from the year 2016. The reality is much darker. The Greens, not then coalition partners the Social Democrats, the project from the beginning distrusted deeply and warned of a “million grave”. You were right.
At the latest with the new EU directives, which largely prohibits government funding of airports in Europe from 2024, the Hahn airport would have been history. But the state government separates itself even from self-interest of the transport project. Rheinland-Pfalz will comply with the debt brake and must save. The new traffic light coalition led by Malu Dreyer (SPD) has all sorts of expensive plans, such as in road and bridge construction. . Annual million payments to a problem-Airport can and will be no longer afford
But at least in the coming years, as the state government divulged, still flow stately aid amounts; the talk is of 60 to 70 million euros. For the region of the airport is a major employer; more than 300 employees are currently located on the faucet worked. Jobs and infrastructure were also Beck, the main reasons, to take the risk in Hunsrück after the withdrawal of the US Army.
Becks successor Dreyer and her government struggling since then to bring order to the country’s finances and the deficit repel plants. In Rhineland-Palatinate Cabinet knowledge has now established that the state better not try his entrepreneurial luck with fun parks and regional airports. The Nürburgring, another project of the pelvic-years, has now been sold to Russian investors, the airport in Palatine Two bridges had to make tight.
The opposition in parliament called a “fire sale”
Interior Minister Roger Leventz (SPD), also responsible for major infrastructure projects in the country, promises the airport a happier future than Zweibrücken. “With the acquisition by a private investor, a new chapter on tap, which will provide further impetus for the development of the airport starts”, explained the Minister. The opposition sees the more critical. The CDU speaks of a “fire sale” and denounces lost control millions. The investor wants meanwhile avowedly ensure that the Hunsrück-Airport is a kind of hub for Asian tourists and cargo aircraft. However, the fold
Normally, acquisitions of China’s hand and foot: The investors from the People’s Republic let the German management in office, a most, two managers from China be stopped, but the lead on a leash and focus on creating an improved market access in China.
Not everything went so smoothly. 1997 bought Chinese investors an insolvent pencil company in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and failed. Four years later, bought the former Chinese TV manufacturer Schneider, attracted expertise from and shifted the production.
In Lübeck you sat on investors from China. Now is the airport broke
Since the first failures in foreign lands the lead foreign acquisitions but checks in Beijing strictly: Every few years, the central government published a clarification by country table with endorsement advice. Germany is the engineering, environmental technology and the automotive supply industry on the list. In some cases, investors need up to 100 licenses. Today, after all, about 15 stamps are still needed. Who has the together, usually also has a good plan.
But there are some exceptions, and unfortunately these are the airports. In 2007, a Chinese entrepreneur a former military airport in Parchim, in the remote area of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. But the announced expansion into a cargo and passenger hub comes since no progress. 2014 bought a Chinese investor insolvent Lübeck Airport. Allegedly he had negotiated an exclusive agreement with Turkish Airlines, announced the new owner. A mistake. A year later the airport was thus again broke
Now again a Chinese investor. Shanghai Yiqian Trading Company. And again can hardly find anything about this company. In Shanghai at least two companies bear this name. When a company it is, you’ve definitely bought no airport. In the other, a woman who says that it was a private number and the entry in the commercial register must be false reports. The replies Carsten Jennert by the auditing firm KPMG, his company had the business plans put under the microscope “. We want to ensure that we can avoid scenarios like in Lübeck or Parchim” Hopefully Jennert’s right.
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