Resolving the difficulty of recovering advance capital for construction of Ho Chi Minh City

A section of Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong highway

Struggling to repay the advance payment

There have been important instructions for recovering the state budget capital advanced to invest in the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong Expressway Construction Project (Phase I), if following Official Dispatch No. 12944/BTC-PTHT just sent by the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Construction last weekend.

The above project was approved for investment by the Prime Minister in Decision No. 1286/QD-TTg dated December 6, 2004 with the goal of building 40 km of expressway, with a scale of 4 standard lanes and 2 emergency lanes, and a design speed of 100 km/h. This is the first standard expressway built in Vietnam, in which the investment capital is implemented according to the mechanism of advancing state budget capital and repaying the advanced capital through selling toll collection rights.

After nearly 6 years of construction, the Project was completed by the Ministry of Transport (MOT, now the Ministry of Construction) and put into operation in 2011. According to data from the investor (My Thuan Project Management Board - Ministry of Construction) compared with the State Treasury, in total, the Ministry of Finance advanced 9,563.259 billion VND to invest in the Project.

To recover the advanced state budget capital, from 2011 to December 31, 2018, the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong Expressway was organized to collect tolls through toll stations on the route. The right to collect tolls on this expressway continued to be transferred by the management unit in the period 2014 - 2018 with the contract to sell the right to collect tolls ending on December 31, 2018.

Thus, in the whole period of 2011-2018, the Ministry of Transport has collected and sold the right to collect fees and paid to the state budget 2,390,937 billion VND, while 7,172,32 billion VND advanced for investment has not been returned to the state budget.

On December 28, 2018, the Prime Minister issued Document No. 102/TTg-CN directing the temporary suspension of toll collection on the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong Expressway and assigned the Ministry of Transport to study and propose specific plans for the management and exploitation of the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong Expressway.

At the same time, because the legal regulations of this period also do not allow toll collection on highways invested by the State, the Ministry of Transport cannot continue to sell toll collection rights on the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong highway to have funds to repay the advanced state budget.

In Official Dispatch No. 7263/BXD-KHTC sent to the Ministry of Finance on July 24, 2025, Mr. Bui Xuan Dung, Deputy Minister of Construction, said that the 2024 Road Law and Decree No. 130/ND-CP dated October 10, 2024 of the Government stipulate that the State collects highway usage fees for vehicles traveling on highways owned by the entire people and directly managed and operated by the State.

However, in Document No. 6727/VPCP-CN dated August 31, 2023 and Document No. 1216/VPCP-CN dated February 15, 2025, the Prime Minister directed the Ministry of Construction to preside over research on investment in expanding the entire Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong - My Thuan expressway under the PPP method, urgently starting the project in the second quarter of 2025.

"Therefore, if we continue to implement the plan of selling toll collection rights to repay the remaining state budget capital, we cannot immediately implement the investment to expand this expressway according to the Prime Minister's direction," the leader of the Ministry of Construction analyzed.

According to the leader of the Ministry of Construction, the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong Expressway Construction Project (Phase I) is a project using state budget capital for investment. The recovery of state budget capital advanced to invest in this project is essentially a procedure to convert advanced capital into state budget allocated capital.

“Therefore, to completely handle the refund of the state budget advanced for the Project, the Ministry of Construction requests the Ministry of Finance to consider and agree on a plan to report to the competent authority to arrange a medium-term public investment plan for the period 2026 - 2030 to refund the state budget capital advanced to invest in the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong section that has not yet been fully refunded,” said the leader of the Ministry of Construction.

Optimal solution

In Official Dispatch 12944/BTC-PTHT, the Ministry of Finance said that, according to the provisions of Clause 1, Article 52 of the State Budget Law, ministries, central and local agencies are responsible for arranging sufficient capital to recover advances from the state budget estimates.

The Prime Minister has assigned the Ministry of Finance to preside over the project of constructing the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong Expressway (Phase I) to balance sufficient capital according to the implementation progress; and assigned the Ministry of Construction to develop a plan to recover capital from the sale of toll collection rights to refund to the state budget the amount advanced to implement the project.

According to Point c, Clause 8, Article 4, Resolution No. 70/2025/UBTVQH15 stipulates the order of priority for allocating public investment capital from the state budget for the period 2026 - 2030 as follows: Urgent public investment projects; national target programs, national important projects; repayment of advanced capital...

Thus, in case the Project fails to collect fees to fully repay the advanced state budget capital, the Ministry of Construction is responsible for reporting to the Prime Minister on a plan to handle the remaining unrecovered advanced capital. Based on the Prime Minister's approval, the Ministry of Construction shall synthesize proposals in the Ministry of Construction's medium-term and annual public investment plan and send them to the Ministry of Finance for synthesis and reporting to the competent authority for capital allocation in accordance with the provisions of the State Budget Law and the Public Investment Law.

Regarding the proposal of the Ministry of Construction on arranging a medium-term public investment plan for the period 2026 - 2030 to repay the remaining advanced state budget capital of the Project, the Ministry of Finance said that the arrangement of a plan to recover the advanced capital of the Project is to carry out the accounting for the repayment of the remaining advanced state budget capital.

Therefore, in case the collection of fees to refund the state budget cannot be implemented, the Ministry of Finance requests the Ministry of Construction to base on the provisions at Point c, Clause 8, Article 4, Resolution No. 70/2025/UBTVQH15 dated February 7, 2025 of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly and relevant legal provisions to report to the Prime Minister for consideration and decision on capital allocation for the project in the 2026-2030 plan of the Ministry of Construction to recover the advanced capital of the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong Expressway Construction Project (Phase I).

“Regarding the data, the Ministry of Construction is responsible for directing the investor to closely coordinate with the State Treasury to review and determine the remaining unrecovered advance capital in accordance with the provisions of law and the Prime Minister's documents permitting advance payment; ensuring the accuracy and legality of the proposed data,” Official Dispatch No. 12944/BTC-PTHT signed by Deputy Minister Do Thanh Trung stated.

It should be added that during the research process to propose expanding the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong - My Thuan expressway to a scale of 6 - 8 lanes, the consortium of investors proposing the project, Deo Ca Group Joint Stock Company - Ho Chi Minh City Technical Infrastructure Investment Joint Stock Company - Tasco Joint Stock Company, developed a plan to repay the state budget's advance capital to invest in the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong Expressway Construction Project (Phase I).

Specifically, with option 1, the investor can choose to repay the entire capital advanced to invest in phase I of the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong expressway section at once when implementing the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong - My Thuan Expressway Expansion Investment Project under the PPP method. According to this option, the capital the investor needs to mobilize is VND 51,192 billion; the toll collection period to recover capital is 37 years, of which the first 10 years the revenue is not enough to pay the loan interest, so the investor must arrange a loan interest compensation plan of about VND 21,000 billion.

With option 2, the investor will repay the capital advanced to implement phase I of the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong expressway in the first 10 years of collecting tolls to recover capital for the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong - My Thuan Expressway Expansion Investment Project under the PPP method. Research results show that this option has a toll collection period of more than 25 years, of which the revenue in the first 9 years is not enough to pay interest, so the investor must arrange a loan interest compensation plan of about 6,300 billion VND.

“Therefore, to ensure the feasibility of the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong - My Thuan Expressway Expansion Investment Project under the PPP method, arranging a medium-term public investment plan for the period 2026 - 2030 to repay the advanced state budget capital is the optimal solution,” said the investor representative.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/go-the-kho-thu-hoi-von-ung-truoc-xay-dung-cao-toc-tphcm---trung-luong-d371627.html