Chances for a settlement of the dispute between infrastructure group GMR and the Maldives Government over the Male international airport appear bright after a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a Maldives delegation led by President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom.
The Prime Minister requested the Maldivian President to “amicably settle” the issue and address the problems some Indian investors were facing there.The Maldives President said he was hopeful that the Male international airport issue would be mutually resolved before going through arbitration.
“As we speak, GMR is talking to our Government officials to have a settlement out of court and out of arbitration,” President Gayoom said, adding GMR can invest in Maldives in many areas. The Maldives Government had cancelled the GMR group’s $511-million (Rs 3,180 crore today) contract for modernising the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport in Male in December 2012. In June last , the GMR group filed for arbitration in Singapore seeking damages of over $1 billion for “wrongful termination” of the airport contract.
The GMR group says it won the contract for Male airport through a transparent bidding process, while the previous Maldivian Government countered that the bidding process was not transparent