JEDDAH - The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) has concluded successfully the second tranche of sukuk. The sukuk was launched on Sept. 24 to finance expansion projects of King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA) in Jeddah and King Khaled International Airport (KKIA) in Riyadh. GACA said in a press statement on Monday that the second tranche of sukuk, worth SR15.21 billion, was oversubscribed almost double by a total of 31 government funds, local banks, insurance and investment companies. This is GACA's second issue of sukuk after its successful SR15 billion debut issue in January 2012. The first issue was used to finance part of the SR27 billion KAIA expansion project. According to the statement, the tremendous response for the second issues shows the confidence of investors in the Saudi economy and its development projects despite the fluctuations in the global market, particularly during the last three months. Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in infrastructure projects and revamping many of its airports to cater to growing passenger traffic. The KAIA project, which will increase the airport's annual capacity to 30 million passengers, was scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014. The KKIA project will increase its capacity to 35.5 million with the first phase costing SR1.26 billion. It will be ready by 2017. — SG