Localities worry about obstacles when investing in highways

On June 1, the Ministry of Transport held an online conference to share experiences in implementing expressway projects. Mr. Tran Huu Hai, Director of Project Management Board 6 (Ministry of Transport), said that the recovery and compensation of assets on land to build mines to provide land for project filling is very difficult, many landowners do not agree or demand too high compensation prices.

Địa phương lo gặp vướng khi đầu tư cao tốc - Ảnh 1. — Many localities are worried about problems when they are the first investors of large-capital highway projects.

Therefore, to facilitate the licensing of land mining, it is advisable to use land that the State is assigning to state management units such as agricultural and forestry farms. When the locality agrees, the procedures will be resolved very quickly.

Mr. Hai also raised the issue of changing the purpose of using forest land to build highways, when the regulation is calculated based on detailed coordinates. The regulation on converting forest land for transportation projects needs to be revised, if the correct coordinates are determined from the beginning to convert forest land to build roads, it cannot be done.

A representative of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee said that they were assigned to be the investor of a part of Ring Road 3. The city is trying to complete the procedures to start construction before June 30. This person shared his concerns when capital for transportation accounts for up to 70% of Ho Chi Minh City's public investment capital. He proposed applying some types of lump-sum contracts, general contractors (turnkey) to reduce pressure on state management agencies, and promote the project implementation capacity of large contractors and strong corporations.

The representative of the People's Committee of Hoa Binh province proposed to combine the procedures for converting forest land and rice land into one set of documents, submit and decide at once, instead of having to separate them into two separate documents, which would waste time and add unnecessary procedures. If the procedures for both forest land and rice land could be combined into one procedure, the time for this procedure would be greatly reduced.

Still difficult material

Mr. Le Quyet Tien, Director of the Department of Construction Investment Management (Ministry of Transport), said that the demand for materials for highway construction is very large, while the mines currently exploiting materials only serve local needs.

The simultaneous implementation of transport projects has caused shortages in supply and increased prices. Meanwhile, the licensing procedures for new material mines are still complicated, taking many stages and levels, affecting project progress. Coordination between ministries, sectors and localities to resolve problems has not been timely.

In addition, the management capacity of investors is uneven, some need to continue to improve to meet the requirements when implementing large projects; attracting private capital to participate in transport projects is still low, banks are cautious in lending credit capital...

Deputy Minister of Transport Le Dinh Tho said that decentralizing the project to the locality where the project passes through is the solution to maximize mobilization and promote central and local resources for transport projects. Not all localities have experience in implementing large projects, so it is necessary to share experiences from the ministry's units and localities with each other.

According to Mr. Tho, localities can establish a specialized team on project investment management including experts and representatives of departments and branches to promptly handle problems arising during the implementation process.

Regarding site clearance, Mr. Tho said that right from the project preparation stage, it is necessary to determine the road map, from there determine the road boundary and set up markers to immediately start site clearance, instead of waiting for technical design to be available and worrying about the site clearance affecting the project progress.

Regarding the licensing of material mines for the project, especially soil and sand mines, the leader of the Ministry of Transport said that the implementation time of the North-South expressway phase 1 has revealed many problems, affecting the project's progress.

The National Assembly and the Government have allowed the application of a special mechanism to reduce procedures and licensing time. However, according to Mr. Tho, there are still some administrative procedures that need to be proposed for amendment, because the material mines supplying public investment projects must be different from the licensing of mining mines for normal commercial sale.

Some expressway projects that have been and are preparing to start construction include: 12 North-South expressway component projects for the 2021-2025 period (phase 2); Bien Hoa - Vung Tau expressway; Khanh Hoa - Buon Ma Thuot expressway; Chau Doc - Can Tho - Soc Trang expressway; Ho Chi Minh City Ring Road 3; Hanoi Ring Road 4. These expressway projects have a total length of about 1,300 km, with a total investment of nearly VND 400,000 billion. The Ministry of Transport and localities are completing procedures to prepare for investment in a number of other expressway projects.

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