The Ministry of Construction announced recently that the national history museum project will be implemented in 2021 at the earliest.

3D design of the national history museum

In its report to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in July, the ministry updated the project’s condition and proposed two plans.

First is to hold a meeting of the State steering committee on building the museum.

Second is to solve present difficulties and command related agencies to conduct the PM’s decision on project funding announced in August, 2015.

Nguyen Quang Nam, Director of the project’s Construction and Investment Management Board, said the ministry did not promote project implementation at present.

“We plan to start it in 2021 when the country’s socio-economic conditions are favourable. At present, we focus on the preparation, especially on building the content and solutions to collect and classify exhibits,” said Nam.

Nam also spoke of the importance of the ministry’s report in calling for official instructions and financial support in the near future.

The scheme of building a national history museum was approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in 2006.

In 2015, PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc concluded that because of the difficult State budget, it was important to conduct the project carefully.

Therefore, he asked the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to command the project’s management board as well as other functional forces in research and preparation from 2015 to 2020.

He also asked the Ministry of Planning and Investment to allocate the additional investment budget for the project in 2015, to put it into the list of medium-term public investment plans from 2016 to 2020 and assigned the Ministry of Construction to build the 2016-2020 capital plan.

However, the project is not planned to receive capital from 2015 to 2017 and from the 2017-2020 medium-term public investment plan.

Therefore, the project management board has not had a budget to maintain its operation and pay for workers.

The national history museum will cost about 11.3 trillion VND, not including the cost of building content and exhibitions.

The10-ha museum complex will be built in the western West Lake area.

VNA