URUMQI, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Expansion of the Urumqi Diwopu International Airport in the capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region began Wednesday.

The airport, upon completion, is expected to handle 48 million passengers a year in its terminal area by 2025 and 63 million passengers a year in the flight area by 2030, the project manager Li Jiajia said.

The expansion project, with a total investment of 20.1 billion yuan (2.8 billion U.S. dollars), includes a new terminal of 500,000 square meters, two runways of over 3,000 meters, an integrated transport hub of up to 92,700 square meters, a parking building of over 250,000 square meters as well as auxiliary facilities.

The project is expected to be completed by 2023.

The airport handled over 20 million passengers in 2018. About 175,600 planes took off and landed there last year, ranking 19th in terms of passenger capacity in China.