"The North-South high-speed railway project is currently adding options to the pre-feasibility study report to submit to the State Appraisal Council, then to the Prime Minister," said Minister of Transport Nguyen Van Thang on the sidelines of the expanded G7 Summit in Hiroshima (Japan) on the afternoon of May 21.
Minister of Transport Nguyen Van Thang
For more information, Mr. Thang said that the options for choosing the speed, carrying goods or not carrying goods are all "very big issues" that need to be carefully studied. The Ministry of Transport recently sent a working group to visit European countries such as Spain to learn about railway construction experience; in the near future, a working group will visit China to learn about high-speed railways.
Regarding the funding plan, the leader of the Ministry of Transport revealed that he is focusing on negotiating with relevant partners to find funding for the project, focusing on Japan, South Korea and possibly other countries.
According to Mr. Thang, Japan is Vietnam's number 1 partner in providing ODA loans to implement projects. The transportation sector accounts for a large proportion of this support capital. In addition to budget capital and investment capital from enterprises, ODA capital from the world is also very much needed.
"Vietnam is proposing that Japan continue to provide ODA capital support to develop infrastructure, especially strategic infrastructure such as expressways, the North-South high-speed railway, and the Ho Chi Minh City-Can Tho railway. It is important to mobilize ODA capital, but it must be capital with special incentives to be effective.
Preferential ODA capital will ease the burden on the national budget in the context that we have many goals and tasks that require budget use," Mr. Thang said.
However, to use ODA effectively, the biggest concern according to the leader of the Ministry of Transport is that the process and procedures are lengthy, leading to preferential interest rate loans becoming high interest rate loans if the time is extended.
Previously, according to the draft Pre-Feasibility Study Report of the North-South High-Speed Railway Project (2019), the Ministry of Transport proposed to invest in the construction of a new North-South high-speed railway line for passengers only, with a design speed of 350 km/h and an operating speed of 320 km/h. The total investment of the project is estimated at about 58.71 billion USD; of which, state capital accounts for 80%, private capital accounts for about 20% of the total investment. The existing railway will be renovated to carry goods.
However, the State Acceptance Council's appraisal consultant proposed that the maximum design speed of the North-South high-speed railway line be 250 km/h to carry both passengers and cargo. The existing railway line will be upgraded to carry inter-regional passengers and container trains.
According to the conclusion announcement recently issued by the Office of the Ministry of Transport, the leader of the Ministry of Transport affirmed that the North-South high-speed railway project is a large-scale project with complex technology and engineering, requiring large resources for investment, is an important driving force to create a breakthrough in the socio-economic development of the whole country and is required by the Politburo to be carefully, comprehensively and thoroughly studied.
Therefore, the Ministry of Transport requires the Railway Project Management Board, consultants and related units to continue reviewing and referring to international experience; updating, supplementing, and completing the project feasibility study report. Focusing on two options: building a new railway line that only carries passengers and a new railway line that both carries passengers and freight for comparison and selection.
Japan will support new generation ODA for Vietnam
On the afternoon of May 21, in Hiroshima, at the talks, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio highly appreciated the two sides' completion of capital commitment procedures for the new generation ODA program for economic recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic with a scale of 50 billion yen.
The new generation of ODA with high incentives, simple and flexible procedures will focus on large-scale strategic infrastructure development projects in Vietnam such as the North-South high-speed railway, urban railway construction, climate change response, digital transformation, green transformation and healthcare.
The two Prime Ministers also witnessed the exchange of documents signing three ODA cooperation projects with a total value of 61 billion yen (about 500 million USD), including: the new generation ODA budget support program for post-Covid-19 socio-economic recovery and development, the project to improve public transport infrastructure in Binh Duong province, and the project to improve agricultural development infrastructure in Lam Dong province.
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