Nguyen Thanh Thai, general director of Phu My Bridge BOT Corporation (PMC), is busy preparing for several major infrastructure projects. After Phu My Bridge was opened to traffic on September 9, 2009, three months ahead of schedule, and Discovery Channel filmed the ceremony in which the two spans of Phu My, HCM City's first cable-stayed bridge, were connected on May 19, 2009, PMC decided to pursue projects with a longer term. Projects expected to commence in 2010 include Saigon 2 Bridge, a mass rapid transit route in HCM City, and a tunnel through Ca Mountain Pass connecting Phu Yen and Khanh Hoa. As a private investor in infrastructure in Vietnam, Thai pins his hopes on drastic changes in the sector in the next few years. "If all goes well, we can start constructing Saigon 2 Bridge in February or March 2010. Otherwise the project will begin in June or July," he says.
Experts from the Ministry of Transport say that 2009 saw the development of many expressway projects in Vietnam. A noteworthy event was the commencement of the north-s6nth'ex¬pressway project (the HCM City- Long Thanh - Dau Giay section) on October 3. The 55-km section.which snakes its way from HCM City to Dong Nai and has received over $930 million of investment (mostly loans from the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Asian Development Bank, also known as ADB) is part of a broader project aimed at developing an expressway which runs the length of Vietnam.
On November 24, Cienco 8, Thang Long Group (TLG), Truong Son Construction Corporation (TSC) and Vinaconex launched the Hanoi - Thai Nguyen Expressway project with investment of over 8.1 trillion dong, including nearly 6.1 trillion dong from Japanese official development assistance (ODA). The 61.3-km section runs through Hanoi, Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen, and aims to boost trade between the capital and the northern mountainous provinces.
On November 29, BIDV Expressway Investment Joint Stock Co started construction of another expressway in the Mekong Delta called Trung Luong - My Thuan. With a length of nearly 54km and total investment of 19 trillion dong, this expressway in Tien Giang is expected to come.into operation in the second quarter of 2013.
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