Ho Chi Minh City: Arranging and finding capital sources to implement metro projects

The Ho Chi Minh City Urban Railway Management Board (MAUR) said that in the coming time, the Board will focus resources and arrange to find capital sources to implement investment in planned metro projects in the city.

MAUR has proposed a plan to strengthen the management of bidding document preparation, contract negotiation with contractors; apply BIM technology in design and project management from the design stage, construction management to control quality, progress and implementation costs, complete the Ben Thanh - Tham Luong metro line 2 project and the synchronous connection project of metro lines 1 and 2 at Ben Thanh station area on schedule, ensuring quality.

After metro line 1 Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien is expected to be put into operation in 2024, Ho Chi Minh City continues to arrange investment capital for other metro lines.

For metro lines in the project investment preparation stage (Line 5, Phase 1 (Bay Hien intersection - Saigon bridge), Line 3a, Phase 1 (Ben Thanh - High-tech medical area) and Line 2, Phase 2 (Ben Thanh - Thu Thiem section), improve the quality of project preparation, limit the need for adjustments during implementation, actively work with sponsors to ensure capital with reasonable interest rates; be proactive in coordinating with relevant ministries and branches to speed up the completion of investment procedures for early project implementation.

Currently, the total project implementation volume of metro line No. 1 Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien has reached over 98%, the city plans to put this metro project into operation in 2024. Metro line No. 2 Ben Thanh Tham Luong is in the preparation stage. The remaining routes are still in the stages of requesting investment policies, project proposals, capital arrangements... and are unlikely to complete the approved targets before 2025 to be able to start construction and complete 1 or 2 more routes in the period 2026-2030.

During the investment preparation process, legal regulations on attracting, managing and using ODA capital have changed continuously, causing difficulties in applying regulations, leading to the need to adjust or re-implement procedures, which is time-consuming and costly.

On the other hand, due to the long project preparation time, the committed capital of sponsors is difficult to ensure; calculating the investment cost for the project is very difficult due to many changes, fluctuations and price fluctuations leading to an increase in the expected capital for the implementation steps.

At the same time, MAUR will coordinate with the Department of Transport of Ho Chi Minh City to soon complete and submit to the competent authority the Project on developing the urban railway transport system in line with the orientation of developing Vietnam's railway transport to 2030, with a vision to 2045. The Project approved by the competent authority is the legal basis for implementing breakthrough solutions and mechanisms to deploy investment in developing the urban railway transport system of Ho Chi Minh City as planned according to the Plan 568/QD-TTg.

Source: https://thoibaonganhang.vn/tp-ho-chi-minh-thu-xep-tim-kiem-nguon-von-trien-khai-cac-du-an-metro-152056.html