HCMC leader wants special policies, not money, for building metro

"We are not asking the central government for hundreds or thousands of billions of dong, but we are asking for policies for the city to execute the projects itself," he said at a city administration meeting held to discuss metro construction.

HCMC plans to build eight metro and three monorail lines totaling around 220 km at a cost of nearly $25 billion.

But only two metro lines, Ben Thanh – Suoi Tien and Ben Thanh – Tham Luong, that will run around 30 km are under construction with ODA funding obtained by the government.

The investment plans for the others have not been finalized yet.

HCMC chairman Phan Van Mai at a meeting on Feb. 16, 2024. Photo by VnExpress/Le Tuyet

The city has been tasked by the Communist Party Politburo to finish all the lines by 2035.

The city has set up a metro line research and consultancy team that will submit a plan on how it can meet the deadline to the government this quarter.

The 20-km first metro route between Ben Thanh and Suoi Tien has taken more than 15 years, and finishing the rest in the next 12 years would be impossible unless the city changes its modus operandi, experts in the team said at the meeting.

The team also discussed several proposals on Friday.

It called for allowing city authorities to carry out large-scale land acquisitions along the metro routes and adjacent areas for transit-oriented development (TOD).

Auctioning lands in these areas and issuing bonds are among the ways for the city, as well as Hanoi, to raise its own funds to build the metro systems efficiently, they added.