On February 16, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Head of the State Steering Committee for important national projects and key projects in the transport sector (Steering Committee) chaired the 9th session of the Steering Committee.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the 9th session of the State Steering Committee for important national projects and key projects in the transport sector – Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac
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The session was conducted in a combination of in-person and online form between the Government Headquarters and the heads of 46 provinces and centrally-run cities that have important national projects and key projects in the transport sector.
2024 is the year of acceleration
Opening the session, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh stated that the country is promoting 3 growth drivers, including investment, which includes domestic investment, foreign investment, private investment, and social investment.
Emphasizing the important role of public investment in leading and activating all social resources for development investment, Prime Minister Chinh said that in 2024, the country will allocate VND 657,000 billion for public investment, mainly in infrastructure investment, and strive to achieve a disbursement rate of at least 95%.
Along with the effective promotion of growth drivers and the focus on disbursing public investment, with the operation of transport projects, it will contribute to reducing logistics costs for enterprises, reducing input costs, increasing the competitiveness of products, businesses, and the economy; creating new development space because wherever the road leads, it opens up new development spaces, especially in industrial development, urban areas, and services.
“This affirms that the Party and the State have determined that focusing on implementing 3 strategic breakthroughs, especially breakthroughs in infrastructure, especially transport infrastructure, is the right and wise choice, which decides the immediate and long-term development,” Prime Minister affirmed. Each transport project has its own mission, function, and different tasks, but all contribute to strategic breakthroughs.
Prime Minister Chinh said that in recent years, investment and development of transport infrastructure have been promoted, creating a movement, trend, “not only the central government but also the localities”. 2021-2022 is a period of preparation and approval of projects, 2023 is the year of simultaneous implementation, and 2024 is determined as the year of acceleration for key transport projects.
Assessing that 2023 can be said to be a successful year for infrastructure development – one of the 3 strategic breakthroughs, the Prime Minister praised localities, ministries, sectors, investors, contractors, consultants, and the people involved in the projects who have made great efforts, synchronized implementation, especially with the working spirit “working through Tet holiday and days off”, “overcoming sunshine, winning rain”, “working in 3 shifts, 4 teams”, “eating sparingly, sleeping urgently”, promoting the implementation of transport infrastructure projects, becoming more and more mature in terms of thinking, awareness, and action.
The Prime Minister also pointed out that some projects still have slow implementation progress due to prolonged investment procedures; slow land clearance; lack of proactiveness in raw materials due to complications in regulations; regimes, policies to encourage units and individuals to make efforts to promote timely projects; relevant entities need to coordinate closely and effectively…
The Prime Minister asked the delegates attending the session to discuss, evaluate the situation, propose solutions to shorten the progress of projects, ensure the quality, technical/aesthetic aspects of the projects, ensure labor safety, hygiene, and environmental landscape. At the same time, remove difficulties and obstacles in the use of ODA funds, the use of sea sand in the construction of transport projects…
A year of success in implementing strategic breakthroughs in infrastructure
According to the report of the Ministry of Transport, in 2023, Prime Minister Chinh chaired 05 sessions of the Steering Committee and together with Deputy Prime Ministers directly inspected the site of projects; have directed, issued many instructions, dispatches, documents to remove difficulties and obstacles, urge ministries, sectors, and localities to implement tasks.
Right in the early days of 2024, Prime Minister Chinh issued 02 dispatches directing agencies and units to continue to promote the highest sense of responsibility, accelerate the progress of implementation of projects, transport infrastructure and focus on removing difficulties and obstacles related to grading, construction prices; exploitation, supply of construction materials.
On the 3rd and 4th days of Lunar New Year Giap Thin, Prime Minister Chinh, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha inspected and celebrated the New Year at 05 key projects in the transport sector in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai province, and Ba Ria-Vung Tau province to directly direct, remove difficulties and encourage and encourage workers.
With the close, determined direction of the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Ministers, along with the close coordination, responsibility, and efforts of ministries, sectors, and localities, many long-standing difficulties and obstacles in some projects have been concentrated on solving; the preparation for investment work is expedited, many projects have been started in 2023; many project works have been inaugurated and put into use, bringing about effective investment results.
With new projects being implemented, the majority have met or exceeded the set plans; the disbursement results of the projects have reached a high level or exceeded the requirements. Ministries: Planning and Investment; Natural Resources and Environment; Construction; Finance have completed many tasks assigned by the Prime Minister.
Currently, there are 34 large projects and 86 important component projects of national importance and key projects in the transport sector in 46 provinces and centrally-run cities. Including 5 railway projects, 2 airport projects, the rest are road projects, mainly expressways and ring roads in Hanoi, ring roads in Ho Chi Minh City.
The East-West Highway North-South Expressway project has completed 9/11 component projects in the 2017-2020 phase and the My Thuan-Can Tho project according to the plan, raising the total length of highways to 1,892 km, of which 2023 alone is 475 km; 2 remaining projects are invested in the form of BOT contracts, the investors, contractors are actively implementing to complete in accordance with the Prime Minister’s directions.
For the 12 component projects in the 2021-2025 phase, although there are still many difficulties in land and construction materials in the first year of implementation, the investors and contractors have made efforts to organize construction and closely follow the set schedule.
Regarding the 5 East-West expressway and ring road projects, the implementation progress is still slow, except for some packages implemented by Ho Chi Minh City and Long An (Ring Road 3), Hanoi (Ring Road 4), Ba Ria-Vung Tau (Bien Hoa-Vung Tau Expressway), Dak Lak, and Khanh Hoa (Khanh Hoa-Buon Ma Thuot) performing as the management agencies basically meet the requirements.
Other expressway projects such as Tuyen Quang-Ha Giang through Ha Giang province; Cao Lanh-An Huu; Ben Luc-Long Thanh are being implemented by investors and contractors closely following the set schedule.
The urban railway project Nhon-Hanoi Station and the Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien project are being reviewed by Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, removing difficulties in contracts, conducting training, completing procedures for fire prevention and fighting, inspection and acceptance of works, and certification of system safety to strive to operate the Nhon-Hanoi Station line and the Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien project in July 2024.
For the Long Thanh International Airport project, construction packages are being organized, such as package 5.10 Passenger Terminal, construction package for facilities serving flight management, which have been directed by Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), Vietnam Air Traffic Management Corporation (VATM) actively instructing contractors to implement closely according to the set schedule. The packages that have not yet started are part 1 of the project to build headquarters of state management agencies, part 4 of the project to build essential facilities are being implemented by the competent agencies to carry out investment procedures; select investors. The Terminal 3 Passenger Terminal of Tan Son Nhat International Airport project at ACV is being implemented, complying with the set schedule, and has disbursed VND 2,477/10,825 billion (23%) to date…
