North-South Expressway will have 8 BOT projects

According to the Government's Proposal, the North-South Expressway will have 11 component projects invested in the 2017-2020 period, of which 8 projects will be invested in the form of BOT contracts.

The Economic Committee of the National Assembly (NA) has just issued a report examining the Investment Project to build a number of expressway sections on the North-South Eastern route in the 2017-2020 period.

According to the Government's Proposal, there are 11 component projects invested in the 2017-2020 period, of which 8 projects are invested in the form of public-private partnership (PPP), build-operate-transfer (BOT) contracts.

The North-South Expressway has 11 component projects invested in the 2017-2020 period.

The report on the results of monitoring the implementation of policies and laws on investment and exploitation of transport works under the form of BOT contracts by the National Assembly Standing Committee shows that this form of investment still has many limitations and inadequacies.

The Economic Committee recommends that the Government propose comprehensive solutions to address the limitations and shortcomings mentioned in the monitoring report of the National Assembly Standing Committee in order to have a reasonable plan when deciding to apply investment in the form of BOT contracts.

For the remaining 3 component projects (Cao Bo - Mai Son, Cam Lo - La Son, My Thuan 2 Bridge), the Economic Committee basically agreed to apply the form of using 100% state capital and then organizing the collection of service fees for these projects.

However, to clarify the reasons for not investing in the form of BOT contracts for these sections, the Government is requested to compare these two forms of investment if applied to those projects.

In addition, for the two projects of Cao Bo-Mai Son section and My Thuan 2 Bridge, the Government is requested to study the option of combining service fee collection with neighboring BOT contract projects to avoid the creation of additional management and operation apparatus and ensure the transparency and efficiency of the Project.

Particularly for the Cam Lo - La Son section project, which is planned to coincide with Ho Chi Minh Road and parallel to National Highway 1, service fees are currently being collected under the BOT contract form. Therefore, it is recommended to consider and propose a suitable service fee collection plan to create high consensus.

According to the audit report, the total investment capital for the 2017-2020 period of the Project is about 118,716 billion VND, of which the state investment capital is about 55,000 billion VND.

The Economic Committee basically agrees with the necessity of investing in the Project as stated in the Government's Proposal and believes that the expressway on the Eastern North-South route plays an important role in the country's economic development, connecting the political center of Hanoi and the economic center of Ho Chi Minh City, passing through 32 provinces, cities and socio-economic regions of the country and especially connecting the 4 key economic regions of the North, Central, South and the Mekong Delta.

The Economic Committee basically agrees with the Government's plan to divide the Project into component projects. However, it is recommended that the Government explain in more detail the basis for dividing the component projects, as there are projects with a length of 115 km, but there are projects with only 15 km or 29 km, it will be difficult to ensure synchronization in the progress of completion and putting into operation.

The report also emphasized that component projects must ensure clear, public, transparent criteria and be consistent with the economic and technical conditions of the Project, especially the principles of determining service prices and the plan for placing service fee collection stations.

According to Tien Phong Newspaper