By 2035, Ho Chi Minh City must complete a network of 8 metro lines.
Building a metro line takes 12 - 15 years
According to MAUR, the goal of completing 220 km of urban railway in the next 12 years is a huge challenge for Ho Chi Minh City.
Firstly, in terms of planning, currently, the population in the city (including immigrants) is increasing, so there is a huge change compared to the time of research of Decision No. 568/QD-TTg. On the other hand, some districts and counties outside the city center are in the process of urbanization, many industrial parks are strongly invested but lack cohesion or development planning orientation lacks synchronization and unity between sectors and fields.
In addition, the current planning scope of urban railway routes only stops at planning route directions and station locations, not linked to urban development planning along the route (TOD), thus not ensuring synchronization between railway development and urban development.
Regarding land acquisition and site clearance, the urban railway development investment project invested by the state does not gain added value due to the development of the urban railway. While the projects are often important national projects, built along the route, with large investment capital and long implementation time. The work of land acquisition and site clearance for project implementation takes a lot of time and costs increase because after planning, land prices at the project implementation location and neighboring areas increase.
Financial resources are also a huge challenge because according to the current planning, the capital demand for the urban railway system is about 25 - 30 billion USD. Currently, there are 2 urban railway lines in Ho Chi Minh City being implemented using ODA capital. Vietnam is no longer in the group of low-income developing countries and has joined the group of middle-income developing countries, leading to foreign loans having less preferential elements and being highly commercial.
The total outstanding debt of the city must not exceed 120% of the city's budget revenue according to decentralization. The city cannot directly borrow foreign capital but must re-borrow from foreign capital sources that the Government lends to the city.
Most importantly, the current procedures are too complicated. Investment preparation for a separate urban railway project, usually a line, because of the large total investment capital, is a project of national importance, and must go through many steps. The total implementation time lasts an average of 12 - 15 years for a line. Due to the long investment preparation procedures, the unsynchronized investment and exploitation between lines will reduce the efficiency of the entire urban railway network. Prolonging the project implementation time wastes resources, reduces investment efficiency, and creates bad public opinion...
In addition, urban railway projects in the process of investment and construction apply different technologies. These differences in techniques and technologies have a great impact on investment, construction and operation, causing some inevitable consequences and shortcomings. Typically, the tunnel size and car size are different, so trains on one route cannot move to another; purchasing spare parts for replacement and maintenance is difficult, the quantity purchased is small, so the cost is high; differences in ticket card technology and payment methods reduce convenience and are not attractive to passengers, etc.
The current domestic railway industry mainly serves the national railway on a small scale, with outdated technology that does not meet the requirements of mastering technology to provide materials and spare parts for maintenance and repair of modern urban railways.
"Not to mention, the simultaneous construction of all urban railway lines will severely affect the traffic and economy of Ho Chi Minh City (underground construction, fencing for above-ground construction works, etc.); the organization model, project management, and human resource training will also face many difficulties" - MAUR's report stated.
Engineers with specialized vehicles are checking the electrical system for the metro train before accepting Ben Thanh underground station.
How to shorten the time 3 - 4 times?
To ensure the set goals, MAUR recommends a special mechanism allowing Ho Chi Minh City to recover land immediately after the detailed planning is approved and compensate for land recovery at market prices with an additional coefficient to encourage people to hand over land and prioritize on-site resettlement so that people can benefit from the TOD model.
Regarding financial resources, in addition to the city budget's counterpart capital and ODA loans, foreign preferential loans from the Government as at present, it is necessary to synchronously implement solutions to expand and diversify financial resources including: State budget used to recover land for site clearance; organizing land fund auctions according to the TOD model; mobilizing domestic capital such as issuing bonds, government bonds, shares, public-private partnerships or other legal forms (if any) ... and borrowing foreign capital.
According to MAUR, to achieve the goal of completing the entire urban railway network according to the plan by 2035, investment preparation for all routes must be completed within 4-5 years (2028 at the latest). From this requirement, MAUR proposed 2 options: Option 1 is not to carry out investment procedures for a separate project or route as is currently done, but to carry out investment procedures for all urban railway routes, submit to the National Assembly for approval of the investment policy for the entire project, then assign Ho Chi Minh City to approve the investment project.
According to this plan, it is expected that the city will prepare and submit the project to the National Assembly for approval in about 1.5 - 2 years; the project approval steps (proactively implemented by the city) will take about 1 year. The total investment preparation time (for all routes) will be about 3 years. It is guaranteed to be completed before 2028 to move to the project implementation phase.
Option 2: Implement the same procedures as option 1 but propose to assign Ho Chi Minh City to approve the investment policy.
In addition, it is necessary to establish a common framework of regulations/standards for all urban railway lines before the project is approved (in the next 1.5 - 2 years) including basic elements such as tunnel gauge limits; power supply techniques and technology; gauge limits and car sizes; information, signal and operation systems; creating a mechanism to develop the domestic railway industry.
Regarding the organizational model, project management and human resource training, MAUR also proposed to convert the Urban Railway Management Board and HURC1 Company into an urban railway enterprise model with full functions of capital mobilization, investment implementation, project management and implementation, operation and maintenance, real estate development and other services.
If the metro system development project to implement Conclusion 49 of the Politburo is approved by the National Assembly in May 2024, Ho Chi Minh City is expected to complete the detailed project planning and TOD planning in 2025; complete the capital arrangement for implementation in 2025 - 2026; complete the investment preparation and project approval in 2026 - 2027 to complete the site clearance and handover of clean land by 2028. Construction will be organized in 2028 - 2029 and the construction of the urban railway system will be completed in 2035 in accordance with the Politburo's requirements.
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