Poor transportation infrastructure makes integration impossible.

Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung stated that the early construction of the North-South expressway is unavoidable because it will be the foundation for the country's development towards industrialization and modernization.

Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung stated this conclusion at a meeting on the investment plan for the North-South expressway until 2020, presented by the Ministry of Transport, held on the morning of July 7th at the Government headquarters.

Commenting on the project, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung agreed on its necessity and stated that the project cannot be delayed. The project plays a crucial role in ensuring the foundation for the country's development towards industrialization and modernization, and enhancing the competitiveness of the economy.

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In recent years, the Government and various ministries and agencies have focused on developing transportation infrastructure. This is considered a strategic breakthrough and has achieved many important results. The quality of transportation infrastructure has changed rapidly, making a significant contribution to economic growth and creating conditions for improving the quality of life for the people.

However, according to the Deputy Prime Minister, the transportation infrastructure system still has many shortcomings compared to the needs of the industrialization and modernization period, and the transportation network is still limited compared to the region.

"Poor transportation infrastructure makes integration, industrialization, and modernization impossible," said Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung.

Based on that, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung emphasized the goal of creating a breakthrough in urban transport infrastructure, including accelerating the development of Vietnam's expressway system, focusing on completing the North-South expressway (eastern section) by 2020. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, completing this expressway will be a prerequisite for building other expressways, realizing the target of reaching and exceeding 2,000 km of expressways by 2020.

Regarding funding for the project, the Deputy Prime Minister stated that in the future, the State budget needs to allocate adequate funds to create "seed capital" to attract social resources to invest in the development of this expressway under the PPP model, ensuring that capital from the private sector is greater than that from the State budget.

The Deputy Prime Minister requested the Ministry of Transport to coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to calculate and propose a mechanism for state capital support, ensuring a reasonable toll collection period and fee level, while also ensuring attractiveness to attract domestic and especially foreign investment.

The Deputy Prime Minister requested the Ministries of Transport, Planning and Investment, Finance, Construction, and Natural Resources and Environment to develop detailed plans for highway development, focusing on the eastern section of the North-South expressway, which will be led by the Ministry of Transport. After the Ministry of Transport completes the plan, it should be sent to the relevant ministries to specify each issue, including objectives, necessity, scale, etc., and clearly state the mechanism for mobilizing resources.

Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung also instructed the Ministry of Transport to coordinate with relevant ministries and agencies to calculate the total investment for each project, control the quality of the projects, and develop criteria for selecting investors.

At the end of the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung requested that the Ministry of Transport complete the detailed overall plan for this project within two weeks (starting from July 7th).

According to Chinhphu.vn