South Africa will build a new airport at La Mercy, near the port of Durban, at a cost of at least R2.5-billion.

“The La Mercy airport will be operational by 2010,'' Transport Minister Jeff Radebe said at a press briefing in Johannesburg today.

The 2.5 billion rand cost of the airport was the “absolute minimum'', Monhla Hlahla, managing director of the Airports Company of South Africa, said at the briefing.

South Africa is upgrading its airports in anticipation of greater numbers of tourists before the World Cup as the highest growth rate in more than 20 years boosts demand for air travel.

Acsa, as the company that manages South Africa's major airports is known, is planning to spend 5.2 billion rand by 2010 upgrading facilities.

Construction of the airport will be completed by December 2009 and it should open in the first quarter of the following year, Radebe said. Durban International Airport, South Africa's third largest, after Johannesburg and Cape Town, will be closed.

The site in Durban "cannot accommodate growth'' in passenger numbers, he said.

Growth in the $339 billion economy, the largest in Africa, accelerated to 4.9 percent last year, the greatest in 21 years, from 4.5 percent in 2004. Growth helped boost passenger traffic at South Africa's airports more than 11 percent to 14.8 million people in the 2006 fiscal year, Acsa said.

The new airport will be funded from borrowing and income from tariffs, Acsa's Hlahla said. Johannesburg-based Acsa said July 19 it planned to sell bonds worth 2 billion rand to help fund expansion. The bond should be sold before the end of the year, Finance Director Brooks Mparutsa said.