The toll rates for state-invested highways are still undecided.

The draft Road Law, spearheaded by the Ministry of Transport, is currently open for public comment. Notably, the Government has proposed several new regulations in the draft Road Law. Among them, the draft law adds provisions for collecting tolls on state-invested expressways based on the number of kilometers traveled.

Vẫn chưa 'chốt' thu phí đường cao tốc do nhà nước đầu tư - Ảnh 1. — The North-South expressways, which are invested in by the state, currently have no regulations on toll collection.

At the same time, the Government also proposed adding regulations on collecting tolls on expressways transferred from investors to the State under public-private partnership (PPP) project contracts.

However, according to additional information provided to Thanh Nien newspaper yesterday afternoon, July 10th, a representative from the Ministry of Transport said that the proposal to collect tolls on state-invested expressways had been sent to various ministries and agencies for comments before being submitted to the Government for reporting to the National Assembly , but many ministries and agencies have yet to provide feedback.

According to the procedure, ministries and agencies will have to provide feedback so that the Ministry of Transport can compile a report for the Government to agree on a plan before submitting it to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly at the next session for comments, and then to the National Assembly.

Earlier in May 2023, the Ministry of Transport submitted to the Government a plan for piloting toll collection on 9 state-invested, managed, and owned expressways. The pilot period under the toll collection mechanism will last a maximum of 5 years from the time toll collection is implemented on the road.

According to the Ministry of Transport, currently, the law only stipulates the collection of road usage fees for investment projects for business purposes (BOT projects) based on a pricing mechanism. There are no regulations on collecting usage fees for expressways invested in and managed by the State based on a pricing or fee mechanism.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Transport proposed allowing nine state-invested expressways to be completed and put into operation before 2025 to pilot a toll-based mechanism.

Besides the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong expressway, eight sections of the North-South expressway in the eastern region, planned for the 2017-2020 period, have been proposed for pilot implementation, including: Cao Bo - Mai Son; Mai Son - National Highway 45; National Highway 45 - Nghi Son; Nghi Son - Dien Chau; Cam Lo - La Son; Vinh Hao - Phan Thiet; Phan Thiet - Dau Giay; and My Thuan 2 bridge.

The Ministry of Transport also projected a fee of 1,000 - 1,500 VND/km/vehicle for vehicles with fewer than 12 seats and calculated that the 9 expressway sections could generate over 2,000 billion VND per year for the state budget.

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