Worry about the super-fast investment roadmap for Ho Chi Minh City's metro

With a series of difficulties, especially in terms of capital, Ho Chi Minh City's goal of building 355 km of metro in 10 years is full of challenges.

Passengers on Metro Line 1. Photo : Le Toan

Want to break through with metro

According to the planning in Decision No. 568/QD-TTg dated April 8, 2013 of the Prime Minister adjusting the Planning for Transport Development of Ho Chi Minh City to 2020 and vision after 2020 (referred to as Planning 568), Ho Chi Minh City will only build 8 metro lines and 3 tram lines or monorail.

However, at the end of 2024, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 1711/QD-TTg approving the Ho Chi Minh City Planning. According to this planning and the Ho Chi Minh City Master Plan (pending approval), the City will have 10 metro lines with a total length of about 510 km.

The Project on Developing the Urban Railway Network in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi (abbreviated as the Urban Railway Project) implements Conclusion No. 49-KL/TW of the Politburo (orientation for the development of Vietnam's railway transport to 2030, vision to 2045) clearly states that by 2035, that is, within 10 years, Ho Chi Minh City will complete the construction of 7 metro lines with a total length of about 355 km, ensuring that the proportion of public passenger transport reaches 40-50% of people's travel needs. In the following 10 years, the City will build 3 more metro lines with a length of 155 km, increasing the total network length to 510 km.

In addition, according to the Ho Chi Minh City Master Plan, metro lines in Bien Hoa (Dong Nai), Tan An (Long An), Thu Dau Mot (Binh Duong) will connect with metro lines 1, 3, 4 and 5 of the City. Currently, the City People's Committee has coordinated with provinces to study and implement the extension of urban railway line 1 Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien to these provinces.

The Ho Chi Minh City Urban Railway Project is considered “bold in its aim to develop a breakthrough metro network”. The project is awaiting approval, but in order to proactively and quickly implement it, the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee has requested relevant agencies to review the proposed land use needs to serve the adjustment of land use planning.

After reviewing, Mr. Phan Cong Bang, Head of the Management Board of Ho Chi Minh City Urban Railway (MAUR), said that the unit has just proposed a plan (land area, location) for 7 new metro lines expected to be implemented from now until 2035. In addition to the above lines, MAUR has researched and proposed to develop other metro lines (lines 8, 9, 10), riverside Tramway/LRT lines, as well as a model of urban development according to traffic orientation (TOD) around metro stations.

The planning of the vicinity of the stations with large areas aims to maximize urban space and develop synchronous transport infrastructure. After being approved by the competent authority, MAUR will continue to coordinate with relevant units to implement the next steps, updating detailed information on land use in the following phase.

Metro Line 2, 15 years after approval, has yet to hand over 100% of the cleared land. Photo: Le Toan

The super fast route is full of… worries

With 10 years (from now to 2035) to complete the construction of 7 metro lines with a total length of about 355 km, Ho Chi Minh City has proposed a plan that in the 2025-2027 period, it will focus on completing project preparation work. In the 2027-2028 period, it will complete compensation, support, resettlement and site handover. The metro lines will start construction from 2027 and no later than 2028.

However, looking at the two metro lines No. 1 (Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien) and No. 2 (Ben Thanh - Tham Luong), many experts are "worried" about that super-fast route. Because Metro Line No. 1 alone is only nearly 20 km long, but it took 17 years from the date of first approval (2007) and 12 years of construction (2012) with 5 missed deadlines, before it officially came into operation (December 22, 2024) and is expected to be inaugurated in March 2025.

Or Metro Line 2, just over 11 km long, was approved in 2010 and expected to be commercially operational in 2016. But up to now, 15 years after the approval date, Metro Line 2 still has no clear start date.

The challenge of 'clean' premises

According to a recent report by Ho Chi Minh City leaders to the National Assembly Standing Committee and relevant ministries and branches, the major challenge in developing the metro system is that compensation, site clearance and relocation of technical infrastructure works "encounter many difficulties, prolonging the time, leading to additional costs committed to contractors and sponsors, increasing project management costs and affecting the progress of projects".

The process of building Metro Line 2 clearly shows that. This project has "learned from experience" of Metro Line 1, so it is urged to clear the land urgently, for commercial exploitation in 2016, that is 6 years after approval. But up to now, in the latest report sent to the National Assembly Standing Committee and related ministries and branches, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Bui Xuan Cuong stated: "Ho Chi Minh City is organizing the relocation of technical infrastructure works, preparing a 'clean' land to start construction in the near future".

In more detail, according to MAUR, up to now, Metro Line 2 has cleared 99.83% of the land (584/585 cases). In 2023, when the project had just handed over 86.69% of the land, the investor had to "call" to Ho Chi Minh City that the delay in compensation, support, and resettlement would increase the cost by 68 billion VND each year due to interest, commitment fees, and inflation, etc.

Similarly, compensation and site clearance are one of the main reasons for the slow progress of Metro Line 1.

There are many big challenges

Also looking at the reality of investing in Metro Line 1 and Metro Line 2 (under Plan 568, Ho Chi Minh City will only build 8 metro lines, instead of 10 lines as in the current "bold" project), capital is a big challenge. Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee said that there has not been a suitable and adequate arrangement for investment in urban railway development (in the 2011-2020 period, only about 21,695 billion VND was balanced, reaching 14.1% of capital demand).

Metro projects have a very large scale and total investment and are funded by official development assistance (ODA). Meanwhile, the process of borrowing ODA capital from many different donors requires a lot of time to complete the procedures for negotiating, signing loans and consulting with each donor during the project implementation process.

Not only that, metro projects are all important national projects, so the procedures for approving policies, adjusting investment policies, approving projects and adjusting projects are complicated and lengthy. Also, due to the long project preparation time, the calculation of investment costs for the project must be changed due to price fluctuations, leading to "capital increase", and the committed capital of sponsors is difficult to ensure.

On the other hand, domestic legal documents change during the project implementation process, leading to the need to adjust or re-implement procedures, which takes a lot of time and costs more. Not to mention, the system of technical regulations, standards, norms, and unit prices of specialized materials and equipment in the urban railway sector in Vietnam is not complete, synchronous, and there are few projects to refer to, so it is difficult to manage construction investment.

Planning for connections between urban railways and other modes of transport is not yet synchronous; planning around stations is not yet integrated with urban and industrial planning to promote overall efficiency and create more resources for investment in urban railway development.

Finally, according to the leaders of Ho Chi Minh City, the implementation and execution of metro projects must harmonize the procedures and regulations of sponsors and Vietnamese law, so there are many related adjustments to the contract (form, value and arising appendices), adjustments to the volume of work, construction contractors, and consulting contractors to suit the sponsor's requirements, and at the same time, to suit current regulations.

Metro Line 1 still has many problems to deal with.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport, after more than 2 months of operation, Metro Line 1 is operating relatively stably. However, there are some important issues that need to be resolved soon.

Specifically, technical problems arising from the weather, which could affect operations (signal loss, power outage due to lightning, train derailment due to heavy rain). Because the automatic ticketing system of the contractor Hitachi has not been put into use, people have to buy tickets manually, prolonging the waiting time. The payment and ticket collection system is still not complete, causing some inconvenience.

On the other hand, the traffic infrastructure system connecting within a 1 km radius around Metro stations still has many shortcomings such as damaged sidewalks, some locally damaged roads, and many existing signs have not been updated with traffic directions to the stations.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/lo-cho-lo-trinh-dau-tu-sieu-toc-ve-metro-cua-tphcm-d249630.html