North-South Expressway project funding unlikely

Commenting on the North-South Expressway Construction Investment Project in the East, the Ministry of Finance said: 'It cannot demonstrate the synchronous feasibility for implementation'.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the total component projects of the entire North-South Expressway include more than 20 component projects, of which 11 projects will be implemented in the 2017-2020 period. Of these 11 projects, 8 will be implemented under the BOT (build-operate-transfer) model and 3 will be public investment projects.

The Ministry of Finance said that the Ministry of Transport also assessed that the bidding to select investors cannot immediately confirm success, as the recent bidding to select investors for the Dau Giay-Phan Thiet Expressway Project and the Ho Chi Minh City Ring Road 3 was unsuccessful.

The Ministry of Transport proposed to allocate nearly VND42,000 billion in government bond capital to implement some urgent component projects first, such as the Ninh Binh-Thanh Hoa and Dau Giay-Phan Thiet sections. After that, the exploitation rights will be transferred, and the capital collected will be invested in the next sections. The Ministry of Transport also proposed that the Vietnam Expressway Corporation (VEC) and Cuu Long Corporation (CIPM) mobilize resources to invest in some component projects...

Illustration photo.

However, the Ministry of Finance believes that the proposal to implement the North-South Expressway project does not demonstrate feasibility and synchronization for implementation. In addition, the potential of VEC and CIPM is still very limited, some of the road investment loans of these two units still have to be paid by the state budget, some have to be transferred to allocation. Meanwhile, CIPM is still mainly implementing in the form of assigning management of projects using state budget capital, so it is also difficult to be feasible.

The Ministry of Finance also proposed that the Ministry of Transport be assigned to provide a specific assessment of the financial feasibility of component projects planned to be implemented under the BOT model. At the same time, the Ministry of Transport should review the rationality of budget investment and then concession of exploitation rights in accordance with the provisions of the Budget Law and the form of investment.

In addition, the Ministry of Transport said that for component projects invested in the form of BOT, the road price is determined right in the pre-feasibility report and investment contract with the price and price increase roadmap unchanged. The Ministry of Finance said that this proposal is not in line with the authority and form of regulating road usage prices./.

According to VOV