Northern Ninh Binh province seeks its own airport

By Dat Nguyen January 22, 2021 | 10:00 pm PT

Tourists travel by boat on a river in Ninh Binh Province, northern Vietnam. Photo by Shutterstock/John Bill.

Ninh Binh Province has sought a domestic airport to better exploit its tourism advantages and serve industrial development.

The province, 95 kilometers to the south of Hanoi, has proposed to the Ministry of Transport that an airport be added to the national aviation development plan for the 2021-2030 period.

According to a newspaper outlet of the ministry, the proposed location is Kim Son or Yen Khanh District, which are less than 35 kilometers away from the Tam Coc cave system, a tourist hotspot.

Ninh Binh Chairman Pham Quang Ngoc said the province targets to have 8-9 million tourists by 2025. Last year, the figure plunged 63 percent to 2.8 million due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The northern province wants to increase its tourism revenues five times over last year's VND1.6 trillion ($69 million) to VND8 trillion by 2025.

The proposal says that an airport would boost industrial development in the province. It currently hosts the Huyndai Thanh Cong auto plant and wants to develop electronics manufacturing.

Currently, foreigners have to fly to Hanoi and take a car to the province, which takes a long time and puts more pressure on an already overloaded road network.

Several localities in Vietnam have recently proposed their own airports to boost economic growth, including the central province of Ha Tinh and the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau.

The country currently has 22 civilian airports, including 10 international air hubs. Tan Son Nhat in HCMC and Noi Bai in Hanoi are the country’s two biggest airports.