Chinese state bank ‘to back Airport City’

A CHINESE state bank is to invest in the £650m Airport City scheme at Manchester Airport.

That’s according to a report in the Financial Times which said Chancellor George Osborne will sign the deal when he visits Beijing later in the month.

Airport City will consist of two sections – a world logistics hub to the south of the airport and a business district to the north that will have 1.2m sq ft of offices, 530,000 sq ft of manufacturing space and 1,300 hotel beds on a 65-acre site.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is said to be backing a consortium of the developer Argent and construction group Carillion.

The airport has not yet announced its development partner and has not commented on the report. But Manchester-based Ask Developments, which was ruled out of the process earlier in the year, had formed a joint venture with the Beijing Construction and Engineering Group (BCEG), which is supported by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

In July it said it was considering legal action over the way the bidding process was conducted.