The Ultimate Guide to Vietnam’s Mega Project: Unveiling the $67.3 Billion, 1541-km Vision by the Country’s Construction Powerhouses

At the seminar “High-Speed Rail: Opportunities and Challenges for Vietnamese Enterprises” organized by the Giao Thong Newspaper, representatives from several large construction corporations in Vietnam attended and made important proposals regarding the high-speed rail project on the 1,541-km North-South axis, valued at $67.3 billion.

Considering Importing High-Quality Labor

Mr. Mai Thanh Phuong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of RCC, shared at the seminar that in terms of legal system, Vietnam should refer to the legal procedures for implementing high-speed rail projects in countries such as China and Japan. Enterprises, when gathering information, need to share with each other, thereby forming consortia between domestic contractors.

According to Mr. Phuong, the first step in implementing the project is not to gather forces but to gather information. Construction units need to set a goal of international integration right here in Vietnam by inviting and hiring foreign experts. He emphasized the need to import high-quality labor, from management to equipment engineers and workers.

At the moment, it is important to form joint research groups and divide tasks based on the strengths of each unit and enterprise. He suggested that the approach to the issue should be prioritized over the display of construction capabilities, as with a project valued at $33 billion, the counterparty capacity of Vietnamese enterprises remains limited.

Regarding RCC, Mr. Phuong affirmed that the company has experience in constructing railway bridges and will focus on learning to well perform the items suitable to its strengths.

He also emphasized that Vietnamese contractors should not take on the entire line but focus on their specialties, invest in thorough preparation, and create uniformity and synchronization among participating contractors as well as auxiliary enterprises.

Review, Edit and Supplement Special Mechanisms to Suit Reality

At the seminar, Mr. Nguyen Quang Huy, CEO of Deo Ca Corporation, said that the North-South high-speed rail project currently has 19 groups of special mechanisms, including many mechanisms that have been applied to North-South expressway projects.

He requested to continue reviewing and editing the current special mechanism’s bottlenecks, especially those applied to the North-South expressway project, to ensure effectiveness.

For example, land clearance and material preparation often take a lot of time. If the state or locality takes charge of these tasks, the process will be much easier than letting state-owned enterprises do it through agreements with the people, which often encounter difficulties.

He illustrated that in the North-South expressway project, it took 6-9 months to complete the preparation of a material mine to serve the project, while the total construction time was only about 2-3 years.

Therefore, for the North-South high-speed rail project, if the state takes charge of land clearance and material preparation, and the contractor only needs to start construction when the materials are ready, the project implementation time can be significantly reduced, from 6-9 months.

He emphasized that in addition to building new special mechanisms, it is necessary to review, supplement, and adjust the existing special mechanisms to suit the reality and ensure the project’s implementation efficiency.

Need for Special Mechanisms for Participating Enterprises

At the seminar, Mr. Van Hong Tuan, Deputy General Director of Cienco4 Corporation, expressed his hope that in the coming time, when implementing the North-South high-speed rail project, there will be specific mechanisms and policies to develop human resources not only for construction but also for the operation phase after the project is completed.

He emphasized that participating enterprises need to restructure and invest in new construction equipment to meet the project’s high technical requirements. At the same time, he expected the management agencies to issue special mechanisms to create conditions for enterprises to participate, thereby not only completing the project but also helping to improve the capacity and position of enterprises in the construction industry.

Mr. Tran Cao Son, Deputy General Director of Central Construction Corporation, also raised the big issue of the linkage between contractors. According to him, each contractor has its own strengths, but in reality, there is still a lack of joint work to share and exploit these strengths effectively.

He emphasized that for a large-scale project like the high-speed railway, frequent meetings and seminars are needed for contractors to cooperate, link, and divide tasks reasonably.

Regarding mechanisms and policies, Mr. Son said that contractors have to mobilize a large amount of capital to participate in the project. Therefore, he proposed that the management agency should consider support policies to help contractors access bank capital more easily.

At the same time, he asked if enterprises could receive specific incentives to reduce financial pressure and facilitate the project implementation process.