Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attends the signing ceremony of the Credit Contract for Component 3 of Long Thanh International Airport Project.

At the ceremony, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and other leaders witnessed the signing of the funding contract between the parties.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh expressed his delight at the rapid progress of the Long Thanh International Airport Project and the efforts being made in the second phase of the Project. "It proves that if we are determined and make great efforts, all for the common good, nothing is impossible, nothing is impossible."

The Prime Minister stated that the Party and State have identified the construction of infrastructure systems as one of three strategic breakthroughs for the development and modernization of the country. Specifically, focusing on developing a synchronous and modern infrastructure system, in which transport infrastructure (highway systems, railways, seaports, airports, etc.) is an important pillar, creating new development space, driving force for socio -economic development, ensuring national defense and security, promoting foreign affairs and international integration. This project demonstrates the spirit of developing from internal strength, taking internal strength as fundamental, strategic, long-term and decisive.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the ceremony

According to the Prime Minister, the Long Thanh International Airport construction project is an important national project, a key project of the Transport sector, a special-level project, of strategic significance to the socio-economic development of the Southern Key Economic Zone, as well as to the development of the Vietnamese aviation industry and the socio-economic development of our country in the coming years. This will be a smart international airport and become an airport city.

Accordingly, together with Tan Son Nhat International Airport (expansion), Long Thanh International Airport will form a modern international airport cluster, with large scale and capacity, synchronous and quality exploitation capacity, becoming an aviation transit and logistics center with leading regional and international stature. We need to link the system of these 3 large international airport clusters. Developing the aviation economy plays an increasingly important role in the economy. Do we have enough capacity and conditions to develop this system in the coming time? The problem is whether we can find a reasonable mechanism and policy, and be determined to do it or not? We must be determined with the spirit of "only discuss doing, not retreating".

The Long Thanh International Airport construction investment project, phase 1, is a particularly important national project, of great significance to the socio-economic development of Vietnam with an investment scale of 1 runway and 1 passenger terminal along with synchronous auxiliary items with a capacity of 25 million passengers/year and 1.2 million tons of cargo/year.
It is expected that after completing all phases, Long Thanh International Airport will reach a capacity of up to 100 million passengers/year and become the largest airport in Vietnam in the future, aiming to become one of the international aviation transit hubs in the region.
Long Thanh International Airport is expected to contribute about 0.98% to Vietnam's GDP in 2030, create 200,000 jobs and have a ripple effect on Vietnam's overall socio-economy.

The Prime Minister stated that the total estimated investment for the entire Long Thanh airport is more than 16 billion USD, divided into 3 phases. The total investment for phase 1 is more than 5.4 billion USD, of which the Component 3 project has a loan demand as of December 13, 2023 of 1.8 billion USD (33%). Based on the designation by the Investor ACV as the focal bank to arrange capital for Component 3 project in phase 1 of the Long Thanh International Airport construction project, Vietcombank has worked with the joint venture banks Vietinbank and BIDV to appraise and submit to the State Bank of Vietnam for approval of the policy of medium and long-term foreign currency loans for the project with a very large total funding value of 1.8 billion USD (of which, Vietcombank participates in funding 1 billion USD, Vietinbank 450 million USD and BIDV 350 million USD).

"This result represents a breakthrough development of domestic commercial banks in arranging foreign currency capital for customers, specifically: this is the project with the largest total funding amount, especially in foreign currency, ever by Vietnamese commercial banks, specifically by State-owned commercial banks," said the Prime Minister.

This is also the first project to be fully financed by medium- and long-term USD loans from Vietnamese commercial banks, with more competitive conditions than the option of borrowing directly from international financial institutions. In addition to contributing to promoting safe and sustainable credit growth, the USD 1.8 billion financing for a large project such as Long Thanh International Airport is a clear demonstration of the position and strength of Vietnamese commercial banks in arranging capital for complex and large-scale projects; at the same time, it creates a new positive precedent to encourage and promote the initiative of domestic investors so that they do not have to rely too much on foreign loans in the future.

On behalf of the Government, the Prime Minister warmly welcomed and commended the active efforts of the State Bank of Vietnam, the Ministry of Finance, the State Capital Management Committee at Enterprises, Vietcombank (the focal bank for capital arrangement), Vietinbank, BIDV, and the close monitoring and coordination of the State Bank of Vietnam, which quickly helped arrange a large amount of funding of 1.8 billion USD to promptly support the investor ACV in signing construction contracts with contractors, meeting the project implementation schedule as required and directed by the Prime Minister.

However, the Prime Minister noted that these are only initial results, we absolutely must not be negligent, subjective, or "rest on our laurels". In the coming time, the Prime Minister requested that comrades continue to uphold the spirit of responsibility, further promote the determination to "only discuss and do, not retreat", "say and do", "do what you say", "say and do what you do", "overcome the sun, overcome the rain", work "3 shifts, 4 shifts" to speed up the construction progress, improve the quality of completion of works and items of the Project, meet and exceed the set goals and targets.

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