“Green light” at Ben Luc highway

The Ben Luc - Long Thanh Expressway Construction Project has received important consensus from appraisal agencies in postponing the completion time of the entire route to September 2026.

New schedule critical path

The favorable signal for adjusting the investment policy of the Ben Luc - Long Thanh Expressway Construction Project is clearly shown in the Appraisal Report No. 10166/BC-BKHĐT, which was just sent by the Ministry of Planning and Investment to the Ministry of Transport (MOT) earlier this week. Accordingly, the Ministry of Planning and Investment - the agency assigned to preside over the appraisal, said that the Project has been approved by the Prime Minister to adjust the investment policy in Decision No. 791/QD-TTg dated July 3, 2023, in which the implementation period has been adjusted to September 30, 2025.

According to Mr. Le Anh Tuan, Deputy Minister of Transport, after the Project was cleared of obstacles regarding ODA capital, counterpart capital and approved by the National Assembly, Government and Prime Minister to adjust the Project using capital arranged by Vietnam Expressway Corporation (VEC), VEC and related units have urgently organized the construction of the bid packages in the Project. The main construction bid packages of the Project will basically be completed before September 30, 2025 according to the approved Project implementation time (excluding 1 new additional interchange bid package according to Decision No. 791/QD-TTg).

“Currently, the project only has Package J3 - 1 (remaining volume of Package J3 - construction of Phuoc Khanh cable-stayed bridge) as the critical path to open the entire Ben Luc - Long Thanh expressway due to problems in the contractor selection process,” said a leader of the Ministry of Transport.

It is known that the negotiation process with the Japanese side on the bidding documents to organize international bidding and amend the conditions on the valid nationality of contractors took place for a long time, but did not achieve results, affecting the overall progress of the Project.

In order for the investor to organize the bidding and implement the construction of Package J3-1, it is necessary to carry out the adjustment procedure from the ODA loan capital of Japan to using VEC's capital. According to the roadmap proposed by the Ministry of Transport, after completing the procedures for approving the adjustment of the investment policy and approving the adjustment of the Project, VEC will start the construction of Package J3-1 in March 2025 and complete it in September 2026.

In Appraisal Report No. 10166/BC-BKHĐT, the Ministry of Planning and Investment assessed and proposed to adjust the Project implementation period to September 30, 2026 by the Ministry of Transport as having a basis to ensure the completion time of the Project. However, the time to arrange public investment capital to implement the Project is more than 6 years (the Project started in 2014), according to the provisions of Clause 2, Article 52 of the Law on Public Investment. Therefore, the Ministry of Planning and Investment proposed that the Ministry of Transport report to the Prime Minister for consideration and approval to continue arranging public investment capital to implement the Project according to regulations.

The appraisal authority also noted that the Ministry of Transport is responsible for developing a specific implementation plan; determining the completion time to ensure feasibility and effectiveness; avoiding having to submit to competent authorities to adjust the investment policy, extend the project implementation time many times, affecting investment efficiency.

As directed by the Prime Minister

In addition to extending the implementation time, another important adjustment to the Ben Luc - Long Thanh Expressway Construction Project proposed by the Ministry of Transport is related to the investment capital structure.

According to the latest proposal, of the total investment of the Project worth VND 29,586,914 billion, the loan capital from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is VND 7,085,608 billion (down VND 980,094 billion); the loan capital from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is VND 9,226,265 billion (down VND 1,361,093 billion); counterpart capital is VND 3,872,37 billion (unchanged) and VEC's self-arranged capital is VND 9,402,671 billion (up VND 1,855,101 billion).

The Ben Luc - Long Thanh Expressway Construction Project is managed by the Ministry of Transport and invested by VEC. The project aims to build 57.8 km of class A expressway, 4 lanes, designed speed of 100 km/h. This expressway passes through Long An province (2.7 km), Ho Chi Minh City (28.4 km) and Dong Nai province (28.7 km).

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, VEC's proposal to proactively arrange capital to continue implementing Package J3-1 to compensate for the reduction in JICA loan capital (VND 1,361,093 billion) in the Project to soon implement the package, complete the expressway and put it into operation and use is in accordance with the direction of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Resolution No. 41/NQ-CP dated March 30, 2023 of the Government on the arrangement of counterpart capital for the Ben Luc - Long Thanh Expressway Construction Project.

In case of approval by the Prime Minister, the appraisal authority requests the Ministry of Transport to coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to review and implement the procedures for adjusting the Exchange Note and Loan Agreement with JICA corresponding to the adjustment of the above-mentioned items/packages according to the provisions of law; at the same time, review the items using loan capital and current regulations, ensuring that foreign loans are not used for regular expenditure items.

“The Ministry of Transport, the State Capital Management Committee at Enterprises and VEC are responsible for balancing and arranging sufficient replacement capital to implement items previously planned to use foreign loans from ADB and JICA. Capital arrangement procedures must comply with the provisions of the Law on Management and Use of State Capital Invested in Production and Business at Enterprises,” the leader of the Ministry of Planning and Investment noted.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/den-xanh-tai-cao-toc-ben-luc---long-thanh-d232348.html