Qatari-Syrian holding bids for African airport project

• PIH aims to build Ethiopia airport
• Seeks contract for highway in DRC
• Currently working in Rwanda and Libya

A company owned by the Qatari-Syrian billionaire Al-Khayyat family is reportedly bidding for a new airport and a highway project in Africa.

Power International Holding (PIH) is targeting contracts to build Ethiopia’s new airport and a 400-kilometre highway in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bloomberg reported, citing Boyd Merrett, group chief executive officer of UCC Holding, a subsidiary of PIH.

“Africa is becoming a much larger percentage of our business,” he said.

Ethiopia is aiming to develop a $12.5 billion airport near its capital, Addis Ababa, positioning it as one of Africa’s top aviation hubs.

Work on the project will begin in 2027 if UCC secures the contract, Merrett said.

PIH, which has headquarters in Qatar and is owned by Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat, is currently working on a new airport in Bugesera, Rwanda; a power plant in Zliten, Libya; an airport in Tripoli, Libya and a hospital in Algeria.

The company is also planning to airlift 30,000 dairy cows from the US to supply a new Algerian milk-processing plant, the report said.

In 2025, Al Mansour Holdings (AMH), a diversified conglomerate owned by a cousin of the Qatari emir, pledged more than $100 billion in investments to seven African nations.

Africa has an economy worth $2.8 trillion, a population of 1.4 billion, 65 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land and about 30 percent of the world’s mineral wealth.

• Qatari royal family commits $31bn to two African nations
• Al Mansour’s A-to-Zimbabwe plan for investing in Africa
• Qatar boosted by Congo hydrocarbon discovery

“GCC interest in Africa has substantially increased since Covid,” Charlie Robertson, chief economic adviser to the group CEO at Equity Bank (Kenya), told AGBI in September.

The UAE remains an active investor across the continent, with state-linked companies such as Dubai Investments, AD Ports and Masdar expanding rapidly. It has also signed trade deals with Kenya, Angola, Mauritius, Morocco, Congo and the Central African Republic.

Logistics company DP World, one of the largest Gulf investors in Africa, has already deployed $3 billion in Africa and pledged another $3 billion for ports during the next five years.