It is expected that in the first quarter of this year, the project to develop the urban railway system of Ho Chi Minh City will be completed and submitted to the Central Government.
Total length 220 km
Ho Chi Minh City is planning 8 metro lines and 3 tram lines (monorail) with a total length of about 220 km, with an estimated investment capital of nearly 25 billion USD. Currently, lines 1 (Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien) and 2 (Ben Thanh - Tham Luong) with a total length of more than 30 km have been deployed from ODA capital under the allocation mechanism from the central budget. The remaining lines have not been invested. If in the past, capital was always considered the first obstacle when talking about the metro dream, according to the affirmation of Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai at the meeting with the Consulting Group of experts on construction and development of the Ho Chi Minh City urban railway system on the first working day of the new year: Ho Chi Minh City does not lack money to build a metro.
Metro train No. 1 Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien line on trial run
"The 200 km metro needs tens of billions of USD to complete, but it cannot be done immediately but divided equally each year. Ho Chi Minh City's public investment in 2024 alone is nearly 4 billion USD. In previous years, capital for transport projects accounted for 70%. Therefore, spending a few billion USD each year on the metro is not a big problem for the city's budget. The important thing is to have a financial mechanism to implement it," Mr. Phan Van Mai stated.
If we only look at metro line 1 - after nearly 20 years of implementation, the first 19.7 km of urban railway has not yet been opened - then the task of completing nearly 200 km in the next 12 years, for Ho Chi Minh City, can be considered "unimaginable".
Change your mindset and approach
However, in reality, without waiting for the specific mechanisms in the new project to be approved, metro line 2 is also being implemented by Ho Chi Minh City with very different improvements compared to line 1, new thinking, new ways of doing things. Typically, the project is guaranteed to have "clean" site clearance and 100% "clean" technical infrastructure before constructing the main projects. Since June last year, the investor has started construction and rearrangement of technical infrastructure, including electricity, drainage, water supply and telecommunications systems of the metro line 2 project, as a premise for preparing clean sites, both above ground and underground. The preparation of a clear site and underground space is assessed to contribute to speeding up progress when the project officially starts construction of the station and main line items in 2025, ensuring that metro line 2 will be put into operation in 2030 as directed by the Prime Minister.
In addition, the representative of the Ho Chi Minh City Urban Railway Management Board (MAUR) said that metro line 2 will be carefully prepared in terms of legal procedures as well as funding. The process of building metro line 1 has many changes in legal regulations, taking a lot of time to adjust the law. Therefore, metro line 2 will focus on carefully preparing these factors. Line 2 is divided into more bidding packages than line 1, so from the beginning, MAUR has built an interface coordination plan to minimize the confusion between contractors during the construction process, ensuring project progress.
"If thinking and approach change, as long as we are given the right mechanism and have enough legal corridors, Ho Chi Minh City will certainly quickly realize the metro dream, not only 200 km as planned but also have to extend the metro longer, connect deeper, not to disappoint the expectations of the city's people", the leader of MAUR emphasized.
Ho Chi Minh City requests 14 special mechanisms for metro construction
In the draft project to develop the urban railway system, Ho Chi Minh City proposed to the Central Government 14 mechanisms, including some contents to help the city mobilize capital to build 200 km of metro such as allowing land acquisition for the overall project of the entire urban railway system and the urban development project in the vicinity of stations to implement the TOD model immediately after the project investment policy is decided by the National Assembly; localities are allowed to auction land use rights for the purpose of developing TOD urban area projects according to the detailed planning at a scale of 1/500 and use all the proceeds to directly invest in the urban railway project.
It is expected that Ho Chi Minh City will collect 40 billion USD from this source and a part will be used to invest in the metro. The city also proposed that the Central Government allow the issuance of local government bonds, construction bonds or other forms of capital mobilization that do not depend on the public debt ceiling... to invest in the metro network. The bond interest rate is decided by the two localities themselves, guaranteed on the basis of debt repayment capacity...
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