All three projects are very important to Ho Chi Minh City’s traffic. They are expected to be invested in the form of build-transfer (BT) contracts, but this form has just been eliminated in the Investment Law according to the public-private partnership method.
The largest scale is the Can Gio bridge project, spanning Soai Rap river, connecting Can Gio and Nha Be districts, with a total investment of about 10,000 billion VND to replace the Binh Khanh ferry – currently the only route connecting Can Gio with the city center.
The architectural plan for Can Gio bridge was chosen in April 2019.
Four years ago, the Prime Minister agreed to assign the Ministry of Transport to review and add the Can Gio bridge project to Ho Chi Minh City’s transport development planning until 2020, with a vision after 2020. The city then organized
According to this plan, Can Gio bridge is 3.4 km long, has 4 lanes, and clear clearance for navigation is 55 m.
In August, responding to voters in Can Gio district about this project, leaders of the Department of Transport expected that by the end of this year, the project would be approved for investment policy and feasibility study.
15 km away, the Binh Tien bridge and road project crosses the East-West Highway, Tau Hu canal, Doi canal with a total investment of about 4,000 billion VND.
According to the design, Binh Tien bridge (including the path) is about 3.2 km long, 30-40 m wide with 4 lanes on the main route and roads on both sides.
Binh Tien – Pham Van Chi intersection (District 6) – starting point of Binh Tien road and bridge project, October 2.
The project dates back to 2011, initially assigned to Construction Corporation No. 1 (Ministry of Construction) as the investor, expected to be completed in 2015. However, then the plan to exchange land for infrastructure did not meet the requirements.
The project has not yet been implemented, so currently vehicles from the city center to the southern urban areas must follow Nguyen Tri Phuong street, National Highway 50, Chu Y bridge, Cha Va, Nhi Thien Duong… at high speed.
The third project is Thu Thiem 4 bridge, connecting districts 2 and 7, with investment capital of 5,400 billion VND (including site clearance costs).
In design, the project is nearly 2.2 km long, 28 m wide with 6 lanes, speed of 60 km/h, and can withstand level 7 earthquakes. In 2015, the investor proposed investing in the construction of Thu Bridge.
Responding to VnExpress, Mr. Phan Cong Bang, Deputy Director of the Department of Transport, said that in recent years, Ho Chi Minh City has attracted non-budget capital sources in the PPP method, including BT to build roads and bridges in the context of
Faced with BT projects being stopped, the Department of Transport and other departments and branches consider each investment project in this form to stop and propose to find other sources of capital.
According to Dr. Dinh The Hien, an economic and urban expert, in many countries when needing to invest in large infrastructure projects, the government will organize bidding to find investors.
`With the city’s current capacity, issuing bonds to increase capital for infrastructure projects will attract the attention of financial institutions,` Mr. Hien said and said that the city should prioritize projects.