BELGRADE, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Belgrade airport has been given under concession to the French company Vinci Airports at a signing ceremony on Thursday in a deal worth almost 1.46 billion euros (1.8 billion U.S. dollars).

Document on the 25-year-long concession of the Belgrade Airport was signed by Serbian Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Zorana Mihajlovic and Chairman of Vinci Airports Nicolas Notebaert with the presence of Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic.

"The contract regulates an up-front payment (of 501 million euros), minimal annual tax payments and capital investments," a government release said.

The envisaged value of investments is more than 700 million euros, while it is estimated that the annual tax payment will be between 4.4 and 15.1 million euros.

"The contract includes financing, management, maintenance, expansion and upgrade of the existing airport terminal and the airport runway," the release reads.

Mihajlovic said that "this is a great day for Serbia, Belgrade and the airport itself" and pointed out that the goal of the concession was to turn the airport into a transport corridor and a transport hub for this part of Europe.

Last year the Belgrade Airport received 5.3 million passengers, while government hopes to triple that number with the concession.

The public competition for the concession of the airport was held in January 2017, while the final decision on the winner was made one year later, on January 5 this year. (1 euro = 1.23 U.S. dollars)