North-South high-speed railway: Deputy Prime Minister requests widespread consultation

The North-South corridor connects two major economic and political centers, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, passing through 20 provinces/cities (accounting for 61% of the country's GDP), and is of special importance in economic development and national security and defense, demonstrating the national aspiration for national unity.

Synchronous connection on the North-South corridor, especially connection of traffic infrastructure, is extremely important.

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In recent years, the modes of transport on the North-South corridor have not been exploited and connected in a balanced and synchronous manner (road transport, aviation is overloaded, waterway transport has not yet promoted its inherent efficiency, railway transport is outdated...) leading to high transport costs, alarming environmental pollution and increased traffic accidents, affecting people's travel and quality of life.

Transport demand forecasts show that in the future, transport capacity on the North-South corridor will be in great shortage if only investing in road, air and sea transport according to the plan; to redistribute transport demand on the entire route and compensate for the above-mentioned capacity shortage, a new mode of transport with high safety and reliability, large passenger capacity, fast speed and environmental friendliness is needed.

This mode of transport must meet the requirements of harmonious connectivity between different types of transport; promote urban restructuring and redistribution of population and labor on the North-South corridor; bring investment opportunities, develop production, industry, services, tourism and contribute to solving employment needs; create momentum for socio-economic development, and improve national competitiveness. Therefore, research and investment in high-speed railway lines on the North-South axis is extremely necessary.

To implement policies on investment in the construction of high-speed railways, the Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Transport to coordinate with domestic and foreign consulting organizations to research and complete the pre-feasibility study report on the high-speed railway project on the North-South axis.

The Ministry of Transport has organized many workshops to collect opinions from experts, scientists, economists and socio-professional organizations and basically completed the project research process.

However, this is a project with a large scale and total investment, complex technical nature, large compensation and site clearance volume, and passing through many localities on the North-South corridor, so the project investment preparation process needs to be carefully and thoroughly researched to create high consensus among the Government, Central Government, National Assembly and people.

The project must be submitted to the State Appraisal Council, the Prime Minister, and the Government for consideration, submitted to the Politburo and the Central Executive Committee for comments, and submitted to the National Assembly for decision on investment policy.

In the past time, the Ministry of Transport and consulting organizations have made efforts to conduct research on the project; have consulted experts, scientists and people to complete the project's pre-feasibility study report. However, up to now, there are still different opinions on the results of the investment plan research, especially the determination of the project's investment phase.

Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung requested that on the basis of the completed project dossier, the State Appraisal Council, after being established, will conduct an appraisal according to regulations and carefully consider the necessity of investment, economic, political, cultural, social, environmental, defense and security efficiency.

He requested clarification of the ability to balance project investment resources in the 2021-2030 period, especially considering the need for investment capital for major transport projects (such as expressways, airport systems, upgrading existing railways and other transport infrastructure) or proposing project investment for the period after 2030 to balance development investment capital in each period accordingly, reporting to the Prime Minister for consideration to report to competent authorities according to regulations.

The Ministry of Transport continues to widely consult experts, scientists, social and professional organizations and people, and collect more experiences from countries that have developed and are developing high-speed railways to have enough basis to complete the project and create high consensus for project investment according to the Prime Minister's direction.