Infrastructure major GMR today expressed hope of bagging the bid to modernise an important airport in the Philippines, saying its joint venture was the highest qualified bidder for the over $325 million contract.

“We are technically the highest qualified and between the first and the second bidder there is only 2.5 per cent difference. We are waiting for their clearances,” GMR Group Chairman G M Rao told reporters after meeting Finance Minister P Chidambaram here.

“We are highest technically qualified as well as the highest bidder. It is a process. It will happen soon,” he said.

GMR Infrastructure is part of a consortium led by Philippines—based construction company Megawide Construction which submitted a bid of 14.4 billion Philippine pesos or around $326 million. In the bids which opened last week, it defeated Filinvest—CAI consortium that includes Singapore’s Changi Airport.

If the GMR consortium qualifies for this bid, it would be its third venture in the global market after Istanbul and Maldives.

However, the Maldives project ran into trouble with changing regimes in the country and GMR had to surrender it.

Following this, it went into arbitration in Singapore seeking compensation of $1.4 billion for the “wrongful termination” of a 25—year contract to develop and operate the Male airport.

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