Interview: French group Vinci to bid for new Mumbai airport in coming weeks - CEO

By Dominique Vidalon and Gilles Guillaume

PARIS (Reuters) - Europe's largest construction and concessions group Vinci will submit a bid for the construction of the new Mumbai airport in the coming weeks, its chairman and chief executive told Reuters on Thursday.

Vinci, which operates 35 airports worldwide, is also looking at opportunities to grow in airport concessions in Indonesia and Brazil, said Xavier Huillard.

"We are associated with Tata for the new Mumbai airport. We ought to have put in our bids 15 days ago, it was pushed back, and we will now submit in the coming weeks," he said in an interview.

The Navi Mumbai airport is a new greenfield project, aiming to ease congestion at the existing international Mumbai airport.

Vinci has expanded into faster growing and more profitable concessions such as foreign airports and motorways, as well as engineering deals in the energy sector, to counter weakness in its domestic French construction business.

Last year Vinci also led a consortium which obtained the 60 percent stake in the regional Lyon Saint-Exupery airport being sold off by the French state.

It was too early to say if Vinci would be interested in buying stakes in France's Marseille or Lille airports if they came up for sale, added Huillard.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)