HCMC's first metro line to conduct test run within year

In the first phase of the trial run, trains will run on a section in Thu Duc City.

In August, it will run from Thu Duc to Binh Thanh District and then complete the entire route before Dec. 31, said Nguyen Quoc Hien, deputy head of the HCMC Management Authority for Urban Railways (MAUR), the project's investor, at a ceremony to resume work on the metro post Lunar New Year holiday Thursday.

The test run was originally slated for last year but due to the Covid-19 outbreak in the city, progress fell behind schedule.

Hien said the outbreak from June to October 2021 had "seriously" affected the transportation of materials and equipment for the project.

Many experts are foreigners prevented by the pandemic from entering Vietnam, and those that could get in must follow quarantine rules.

Until now, 11 of 17 trains for the first metro line in HCMC have arrived from Japan and been installed.

The trains are all made in Japan and designed to have a maximum speed of 110 kph on elevated sections and 80 kph underground. Each train has three cars and is capable of carrying 930 passengers.

The line costs over VND43.7 trillion ($1.89 billion) and spans around 20 kilometers, starting from Ben Thanh Station in District 1 to Long Binh Depot in Thu Duc. It has three underground and 11 elevated stations. The project was supposed to be completed at the end of 2021 and enter commercial operations in 2022, but was delayed until now.

The project is now 88 percent complete and expected to complete at the end of 2023.