Japan to lend $620 mln for Vietnam's 1st subway
Tue Jun 21, 2005
HANOI, June 21 (Reuters) - Japan will lend $620 million to finance a subway in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's first, the Saigon Times Daily reported on Tuesday.
The Japanese government loan would be used to build a subway linking Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's commercial centre, and Bien Hoa in the neighbouring province of Dong Nai, it said.
"It is certain that the project will be launched before the construction of the two routes inside Ho Chi Minh City and which will become the first subway in Vietnam," Transport Minister Dao Dinh Binh said on the ministry's Web site at www.mt.gov.vn.
"Hopefully construction of the three routes will be completed before 2012," Binh said.
Japan is Vietnam's biggest aid donor.
The $644 million subway, to be built by a Japanese consortium, would run from Ho Chi Minh City's Ben Thanh market through several districts on the outskirts to Bien Hoa, the newspaper said without naming any firms.
The Transport Ministry said Vietnam aimed to complete major projects by 2010, including a highway between Ho Chi Minh City and Dong Nai province and a new route to allow ships of more than 10,000 tonnes to dock at Can Tho in the Mekong Delta.
The war-time Can Tho airport was to be reopened this year to boost transportation of fruits and other agricultural produce from the Mekong Delta and the construction of a sea port would begin in late 2006, the ministry said.
It estimated investment in Ho Chi Minh City transport projects by 2020 at between $15 billion and $20 billion, with only up to $4 billion of it coming from the state budget.
The municipal authority said the infrastructure projects, to help reduce traffic congestion in the city of 10 million people, would be constructed on a build-operate-transfer basis and it would issue bonds to finance them.
Earlier this month, Vietnam opened the 15.1 km (9.4 mile) Hai Van tunnel, the longest tunnel in Southeast Asia which took 5 years to build, on the north-south Highway One.
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