Sighs from "missing" progress transportation projects

Many transport infrastructure projects are seriously behind schedule. In the photo: The Duong River Water Transport Route Upgrade Project (Duong Railway Bridge) must extend the completion time.

Unfinished projects

After many days of "weighing up and down", early last week, the Minister of Construction signed Decision No. 1873/QD-BXD approving the adjustment of the Duong River Water Transport Route Upgrade Project (Duong Railway Bridge) with the completion time extended to December 2026, instead of the end of 2025 as originally planned.

The Duong River Waterway Transport Route Upgrade Project, using medium-term public investment capital for the period 2021 - 2025, is being implemented in Viet Hung ward (formerly Long Bien district), Phu Dong commune (formerly Gia Lam district, Hanoi city).

Although the scale is not large (about 1,848 billion VND), this project plays a very important role in separating the road bridge from the railway bridge to improve traffic conditions connecting across the Duong River on the main traffic route in the North of Hanoi City, promoting urban development in the North of the Red River according to the plan. In particular, the project also contributes to improving the transport capacity of waterway corridor No. 1 across the Duong River from the seaport area of Quang Ninh, Hai Phong , to Viet Tri port.

Currently, this vital waterway has been invested in upgrading, the shipping channel has reached level II, and the river bridges have basically been invested to ensure the clearance of inland waterways. The biggest bottleneck on this corridor is the existing Duong bridge with low clearance, causing congestion, increasing time and transportation costs. This is also the reason why the implementation of the Duong River Waterway Upgrading Project has been prioritized by the Government and the Ministry of Transport (now the Ministry of Construction) in allocating investment capital, concentrating all resources to complete as soon as possible.

Although receiving a lot of expectations, capital was fully arranged, the technical requirements of the project were not too complicated, but the implementation process of this project was very difficult.

As of the end of September 2025, that is, nearly 28 months of implementation, except for the construction and installation items within the scope of the dike and under the river which are relatively close to the plan, the remaining items (bridgehead roads, access roads...) within the scope of compensation, support and resettlement work carried out by the People's Committee of Viet Hung ward, Phu Dong commune, the investor of the site clearance sub-project, are still at a standstill.

According to the original plan, the People's Committee of Long Bien District (old) and Gia Lam District (old) will carry out site clearance and handover for construction in the fourth quarter of 2024 (including enforcement work, if any). However, after many urging documents from the investor and the Ministry of Construction, the People's Committee of Long Bien District (old) has only handed over 0.3/3.33 hectares of public land and land managed by organizations such as flower gardens and green trees; the People's Committee of Gia Lam District has only handed over 0.2/1.63 hectares of public land and land managed by organizations such as flower gardens and green trees.

“This small area, like a narrow mat, makes it impossible for contractors to implement connection projects and organize construction of river crossing projects in an optimal manner in terms of cost and time,” said Mr. Chu Van Tuan, Deputy Director of the Railway Project Management Board - the unit assigned by the Ministry of Construction to be the project investor.

Almost at the same time as extending the implementation time of the Duong River Waterway Upgrade Project, the Ministry of Construction had to "fire-proof" the progress of another road infrastructure project, also using public investment capital.

Specifically, the Ministry of Construction decided to postpone the time of putting into operation and use of the Project to Renovate and Expand National Highway 2, Vinh Yen - Viet Tri section, Vinh Phuc province (now Phu Tho province) until 2027, instead of 2025 as originally planned.

Started in February 2025, this project has a length of 11.6 km, with a total investment of VND 1,258,179 billion, allocated from the budget in the medium-term public investment plan for 2021 - 2025. However, after more than 8 months of construction, the volume of work performed at the Project only reached about 1% of the construction and installation volume, forcing the Ministry of Construction to adjust the completion schedule, pushing this project through 2 medium-term capital allocation periods (2021 - 2025 and 2026 - 2030).

Unlike the Duong River Waterway Upgrade Project, the reason for the delayed progress of the National Highway 2 Improvement and Expansion Project, Vinh Yen - Viet Tri section, is quite rare.

According to the proposal of the Ministry of Construction and the People's Committee of Vinh Phuc province (old), the Project to Renovate and Expand National Highway 2, Vinh Yen - Viet Tri section, is implemented with a mixed budget source between the medium-term public investment capital for the period 2021 - 2025 of the Ministry of Transport (799.4 billion VND) and the budget capital of Vinh Phuc province (458.44 billion VND). However, this "special" thing makes the project implementation difficult because at the time of implementation, the policy of integrating capital sources did not have specific regulations on the order, procedures and methods of implementing capital allocation, disbursement and payment of local budget capital to implement the project decided by the Central Government for investment.

Specifically, the Budget Law No. 83/2015/QH13 does not stipulate that provincial budgets are allowed to allocate capital for projects approved for investment by central agencies. Regarding the order, procedures, payment and settlement records prescribed in Decree No. 99/2021/ND-CP dated November 11, 2021 of the Government, there are also no cases of projects combining central and local budget capital sources.

It was not until the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of 7 laws took effect from January 1, 2025 that the People's Committee of Vinh Phuc province was able to allocate capital, causing the construction and site clearance to be delayed.

In addition, the merger of provinces and the organization of a two-level local government model also made the organization of site clearance difficult (the organization of site clearance units in communes was slow, some communes lacked specialized personnel to carry out the work), causing difficulties for contractors to organize construction.

“With the above-mentioned site handover conditions, the project cannot be completed in 2025 as originally planned, but needs to be extended to complete the construction volume after the site handover according to the local plan,” said Mr. Luu Viet Khoa, Deputy Director of the Maritime and Waterway Project Management Board - representative of the investor.

Material source disruption

At the Ho Chi Minh Road Construction Investment Project, Rach Soi - Ben Nhat, Go Quao - Vinh Thuan sections, although the investor, the Ho Chi Minh Road Project Management Board, has not officially submitted to the Ministry of Construction an adjustment of the completion time, the possibility of a serious delay in the progress of this national key project is very high.

As one of the last 4 sections under construction to basically connect the entire Ho Chi Minh Highway, the Rach Soi - Ben Nhat, Go Quao - Vinh Thuan Project has a length of about 51.94 km, built on a 2-lane phase scale with a total investment of 4,145 billion VND, using medium-term public investment capital for the period 2021 - 2025.

Although nearly 20 months of construction have passed, the cumulative output value of the two construction packages of this project has only reached 1,230/2,800.67 billion VND, about 43.93%, 14.93% behind schedule (completed by the end of 2025).

In addition to the delay in site handover, the progress of the Rach Soi - Ben Nhat and Go Quao - Vinh Thuan projects is also heavily affected by the scarcity of construction materials in the Mekong Delta region, which is currently congested with many other large projects.

Mr. Le Van Sau, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh Road Project Management Board, said that the project's need for embankment materials is about 2.3 million m3, but so far only 1.19 million m3 have been mobilized, leaving a shortage of 1.11 million m3. The supply is mainly from commercial and imported sand.

The project applies a special mechanism according to Resolution 106/2023/QH15. The Ho Chi Minh Road Project Management Board has repeatedly requested the People's Committees of Vinh Long, Dong Thap, An Giang, Ben Tre (old), Tien Giang (old), Soc Trang (old) and Kien Giang (old) provinces to support the mine arrangement. However, due to the simultaneous implementation of many key projects, the localities have not been able to balance the resources for the project.

The People's Committee of Kien Giang province (old) introduced the sea sand mine and allowed the contractor to survey. However, when conducting the survey, the investor was "shocked" to see that the sand layer was very thin (1 - 3 m), unevenly distributed, with an estimated reserve of about 600,000 m3 on an area of 100 hectares, making exploitation unfeasible. The offshore survey showed a large depth (-10 m to -22.5 m), making exploitation difficult and costly, so the contractor temporarily stopped applying for a license.

At the end of June 2024, following the direction of the Prime Minister, new construction units were allowed to access the mine in Tien Giang province (old); on March 9, 2025, the province granted a license to exploit Hoa Hung 1 mine, with a reserve of 1.82 million m3 and a capacity of 650,000 m3/year. However, the mine was granted to enterprises for exploitation under a commercial mechanism, not under a specific mechanism.

Due to complicated and lengthy procedures, the contractor was not allowed to exploit until the end of May 2025, but had to remove the thick cover layer and adjust the exploitation method, so up to now, only about 55,000 m3 has been supplied to the project.

In the context of lack of resources, the investor has asked the contractor to proactively purchase commercial materials, including imported sand. However, many localities do not announce the price of commercial sand, only the price of mine sand, so the difference between the estimate and the actual price is large, forcing the contractor to wait for the source from the mine to be provided. To date, the project is still short of 1.11 million m3 of sand, affecting the progress.

Due to delays in site clearance and lack of materials, this project will only begin full-scale construction by the end of 2024. With current supply capacity, it is expected that the completed load-bearing area will be completed by the end of October 2025; the remaining area is expected by the end of 2025. While the entire route must deal with weak ground, the construction time and waiting for subsidence will last 10-12 months.

“Under the above conditions, completing the project by the end of 2025 is not feasible. The Ministry of Construction has directed the investor to rebuild the progress, planning to apply technical solutions to shorten the load, striving to unload from June 2026, complete the road surface foundation before September 30, 2026 and complete the entire project around October 2026; at the same time, trying to disburse the maximum amount of allocated capital to avoid waste,” said Deputy Minister of Construction Pham Minh Ha.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/tieng-tho-dai-tu-nhung-du-an-giao-thong-hut-tien-do-d427142.html