Southern Vietnam's longest expressway plows mangroves to reach port

Work started on the 5.8-kilometer long expressway extension a year ago under the build-operate-transfer format.

Invested in by a joint-venture between Ho Chi Minh City-based Tuan Loc Construction Investment Corporation and Hai An Infrastructure Construction JSC, the project will cost VND1 trillion (US$42.33 million) and is expected to be completed within the first quarter next year.

The construction of the route will destroy 35 hectares of mangrove forest in Dong Nai Province, which neighbors the southern economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City.

Steam rollers at the expressway’s construction site. In its initial opening phase next year, the new section of the two-lane road will allow vehicles to travel 80kph.

In the second phase, the extension will be expanded to four lanes.

A worker uses an excavator to load sand onto the road.

A worker named Quoc sprays water as a steam roller stabilizes and solidifies the road’s foundation.

As the land on which the new extension is being built was once a swampy mangrove forest, workers have to take extra care, time and effort on the foundation, he said.

The road will include the new 682-meter Tac Nha Phuong Bridge.

Workers constructing the bridge carry a cable.

Construction of another part of the new expressway addition.

Once completed, the project will link the Ben Luc - Long Thanh Expressway, which will be the longest of its kind in southern Vietnam, and Phuoc An Port on the Thi Vai River at the border of Dong Nai and Ba Ria – Vung Tau Province.

Ben Luc - Long Thanh, which is itself still under construction, will eventually run 57.7 kilometers between the provinces of Long An in the Mekong Delta and Dong Nai – the gateway to both southern Vietnam’s most mountainous and beach-laden provinces – after passing through HCMC.

The area where the road will meet Ben Luc – Long Thanh Expressway in Dong Nai’s Nhon Trach District.

The National Assembly ordered last October that expressway’s investor, the state-owned Vietnam Expressway Corporation (VEC), should finish the project in 2024.

Work started on the VND31 trillion ($1.34 billion) plus expressway in 2014 and it was initially set to be completed in five years. Funding issues have delayed it several times.

The road will also link the HCMC – Long Thanh – Dau Giay Expressway with Phuoc An Port to boost socio-economic development in the southeastern region as a whole.