Djibouti has agreed to a $1 billion deal with the Hong Kong Aerospace Technology Group to establish a rocket and satellite launch facility in the country.
The project “also includes the construction of a port and motorway of international standing in the northern region of Obock for the transportation of materials required for the development of aeronautical sites,” Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh said late Monday in a statement.
He estimated that the project would take five years to complete.
“After 30 years of co-management, the deal provides for the eventual concession of the infrastructure created to the Djiboutian side,” Guelleh continued.
Djibouti is a small country in the Horn of Africa, bordered to the south by Somalia and to the east by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The country is strategically important since it is home to the United States’ largest military base on the African continent.
China, Japan, and France, Djibouti’s previous colonial power, all have military outposts there.