Intellasia News Services -- Big road infrastructure projects took off in 2009

Big road infrastructure projects took off in 2009
Source: 04/Jan/2010 Intellasia | Dau Tu
4 Jan, 2010 - 11:59:18 AM
A series of super projects capitalised at billions of US dollar were started in 2009 and have directly contributed much to the country's economic recovery.

Completed big road infrastructure projects usually lead to the strong development of surrounding areas, especially real estate market when the main roads go past.

According to Ngo Thinh Duc-Minister of Traffic and Transportation, the sector has never seen such big projects like in 2009. With the projects worth total investment capital of nearly 10 trillion dong or over each, the number of super road works last year reached six, including four expressways, one bridge and one deepwater seaport.

Except Hanoi-Thai Nguyen expressway project (that is designed 61.3 kilometres long, total cost of 8.104 trillion dong and started on November 24, 2009) of Ministry of Traffic and Transport, remaining three expressway projects all were invested by the mobilised capital of enterprises.

Being as the biggest project, Noi Bai-Lao Cai expressway of Vietnam Expressway Co (VEC) was begun in the end of April 2009. With total expense of nearly 20 trillion dong, the expressway from Lao Cai to Hanoi is 264 kilometres in length, which is expected to promote the economic development of Mekong River sub-region.

Also invested by VEC, work on HCM City-Long Thanh-Dau Giay (55-kilometre) expressway started from early October 2009. The project is capitalised at $932.4 million, borrowed under the ODA and OCR loans from Jica, ADB and raised from the work bond mobilisation of VEC.

As a part of North South Expressway, Trung Luong-My Thuan expressway was invested under BOT method by Vietnam Bank for Investment and Development (Bidv). The construction was kicked off in late last November, 54 kilometres long with total estimated capital of 15 trillion dong.

Similarly, work on Nhat Tan Bridge capitalised at 13.626 trillion dong began in March early of 2009. The capital volume was sourced from Japan's ODA and Vietnamese government's corresponding capital. Vietnam Shipping Lines Corp (Vinalines) also kicked off work on Van Phong international transhipment port in last October. As designed, the port complex includes twenty five 15,000-TEU container ship wharfs and 12 general ship wharfs with total area of 750 hectares and total cost of $3.6 billion.

Ministry of Traffic and Transport reported that total actualised capital of the sector gained up to 25 trillion dong and the disbursement result of the six projects made a remarkable contribution.

But the worries on shortage of construction space, workers, materials and administration capacity are raised when the road projects are in the completion phase.

Although the investors of six big projects applied the international tender method for consulting and construction packages, the pressure on human resources has not been eased. Surely, none of international winners of these tenders centralised thousands of workers, machines and equipments from their homeland to Vietnam with a lot of complex procedures to directly carry out the works. Therefore, the main rely of investors in Vietnam is to be domestic contractors.

Meanwhile, apart from seven works of Ministry of Traffic and Transport, some other construction firms of Ministries of Construction and Defense, private companies [that can reach the average production value of two trillion dong/year) accounted for a small number.

The risk of human resource shortage is the difficult problem for investors in ensuring the project construction progress.