2021 will be year of major transport projects

My Thuan-Can Tho Expressway

Construction of the My Thuan - Can Tho Expressway, which will improve HCMC's connectivity with the Mekong Delta, will begin on Monday.

The 23-kilometer expressway will run from the My Thuan Bridge 2 in Tien Giang Province to Can Tho City. It will allow vehicles to travel at up to 100 kilometers per hour.

In the first phase, it will have four lanes allowing speeds of up to 80 kilometers. The first phase is expected to be completed in 2022 and open to traffic a year later.

This expressway will cost VND4.9 trillion ($208 million), including VND932 billion for acquiring land. When complete, it will be linked with the Trung Luong-My Thuan Expressway that starts in HCMC.

A section of the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong Expressway which connects HCMC with Tien Giang Province in the Mekong Delta. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

Long Thanh International Airport

Construction of the first phase of the Long Thanh International Airport in the southern province of Dong Nai will begin on January 5, 2021, and is scheduled to be completed in 2025.

An artist's impression of the Long Thanh International Airport in the southern province of Dong Nai. Photo courtesy of the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV).

Earlier, the state-owned Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), which will build and operate the airport, thoroughly checked the land for bombs, mines and other unexploded ordnance.

The $4.6 billion first phase of the mega airport has been approved by the government. It will include a four-kilometer runway, taxiways, aprons, and a 373,000-square-meter terminal with a capacity of 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of cargo a year.

There will be three phases, which will be completed by 2040. By then, there will be four runways, four terminals and other facilities to handle 100 million passengers and five million tons of cargo annually.

It is situated 40 kilometers east of HCMC. The city’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport is currently operating at far above its designed capacity of 25 million passengers.

The country has 22 civilian airports.

Tan Son Nhat’s T3 terminal

The ACV, which runs 21 airports in the country, is finalizing procedures so that construction could begin in October this year.

To cost VND10.99 trillion, the terminal is set for completion in 2023 and will help reduce the overload on the T1 domestic terminal.

T3 will have a floor area of around 100,000 square meters and a capacity of 20 million passengers a year. The work will also include the expansion of parking lots and construction of other buildings, a wastewater treatment plant and a water pumping station.

The Ministry of Transport approved an increase in the airport’s capacity to 50 million passengers by 2025.

Three additional sections of North-South Expressway

In mid-December, the Ministry of Transport signed a public-private partnership contract with Son Hai Group for building the Nha Trang-Cam Lam section of the North-South Expressway.

The work is expected to start in mid-2021. The 49-kilometer-long expressway will run from Dien Khanh District to Cam Ranh Town in the central province of Khanh Hoa. It will have six lanes and a designed speed of 120 kilometers per hour.

The remaining two segments between Dien Chau and Bai Vot (49 km) and Cam Lam and Vinh Hao (79 km) will also be built under the PPP model, starting this year.

Of the 11 sections of the North-South Expressway, five are to be built under the PPP model, but two have not received any bids, according to the ministry. The remaining six are government-funded.

The North-South expressway has received the highest priority as the government seeks to improve the country’s outdated infrastructure to foster economic growth. Its cost is estimated at VND100.8 trillion, with 78 percent coming from the government.

Dong Dang-Tra Linh Expressway

Work on an expressway connecting Lang Son and Cao Bang provinces on the China border at a cost of VND20.9 trillion is expected to begin late this year as procedures are being speeded up.

The 115-kilometer expressway, running from near the Tan Thanh border gate in Van Lang District, Lang Son, to the Tra Linh border economic zone in Cao Bang, will also be a PPP project.

An expressway runs through the northern province of Lang Son. Photo by VnExpress/Ba Do.

The 17-meter, four-laned road will allow speeds of up to 80 kilometers.

It will be built in two phases, the first being a 93-kilometer stretch from Tan Thanh to Quang Hoa District in Cao Bang at a cost of VND12.5 trillion, scheduled for completion in 2024.

The remaining 22 kilometers will be built after 2025.

Currently it takes cars five to six hours to cover the 280 kilometers from Hanoi to Cao Bang. The new expressway, along with the Huu Nghi-Chi Lang expressway that is under construction, will cut the time by half and boost trade with China.