Construction of Long Thanh Airport to begin next month

Lai Xuan Thanh, chairman of the corporation which has been assigned to be the project's main developer, told VnExpress that it will pour over VND99 trillion ($4.28 billion), or 91 percent of total capital needed, into the first phase of the airport.

The money will be sourced from its current cash reserves of over VND29 trillion, with an addition sum of VND6.9 trillion in the 2020-2025 period, and the rest from commercial loans and bonds.

The corporation has signed memoranda of understanding valued at over VND143 trillion with 12 organizations for funding the project, which exceeds the amount needed.

With sufficient capital in hand, and the fact that Dong Nai Province, where there airport will be built, has handed over 1,800 hectares of landed needed for the first phase, the ACV is making a detailed 60-month construction plan.

Thanh also assured that while building Long Thanh, the ACV, which manages 22 airports nationwide, will maintain funding for other key aviation projects including construction of the third terminal at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City and expansion of the international terminal at Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport.

The government last week approved construction of the $4.6 billion first phase of the Long Thanh International Airport.

The first phase will have one 4-kilometer long runway with a width of 75 meters and a system of taxiways and apron, and a 373,000-square-meter passenger terminal designed to serve 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of cargo per year.

This will be the first of three phases of the airport that is expected to be completed by 2040. By then, it will have four runways, four passenger terminals and auxiliaries to accommodate 100 million passengers and 5 million tons of cargo every year.

Lying 40 kilometers east of HCMC, the airport is expected to take up the overflow from the Tan Son Nhat International Airport, which is the largest existing airport in the country.