After an absence of more than 7 years from Jordan, I arrived in good old Queen Alia Airport. I say 'good old' deliberately: I was curious to see the results of the IFC-backed rehabilitation of the Airport, a massive project that was expected to cost US$50 million dollars but ended up costing US$850 million. (Let me add that despite the right-on appraisal, the project did accumulate several awards, including Euromoney's 2007 Project Finance Deal of the year). The Airport, with its green rubber-covered floors, its broken plastic black chairs, and its moustached frowning officers, was one of the few familiar and recognizable places in an incredibly transformed Amman... ...a Amman with dozens of new tunnels, fly-overs, new residential and commercial buildings. With the exception of a strange-looking bridge (with protruding white bars forming triangles of all
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