At a meeting on May 14 with ministries, agencies and localities, the deputy prime minister asked the Ministry of Transport to instruct the localities the road will pass through to prepare the prefeasibility report for the project, VnExpress reported.

The Government will report legal obstacles to the National Assembly so that regulations will be amended if needed to speed up the progress of the project.

The 98-kilometer ring road was designed to pass through HCMC, Dong Nai, Binh Duong and Long An and include four sections: Tan Van-Binh Chuan, Tan Van-Nhon Trach, Binh Chuan-National Highway 22 and National Highway 22-Ben Luc.

Despite being approved 10 years ago, only the 16-kilometer Tan Van-Binh Chuan section is completed.

The Ministry of Transport has approved the 1A and 1B packages with a total length of 18 kilometers of the Tan Van-Nhon Trach section.

As for the 1A package connecting provincial road 25B and the HCMC-Long Thanh-Dau Giay Expressway, HCMC Vice Chairman Le Hoa Binh said the cost for the site clearance of the package had surged from VND148 billion to VND1.6 trillion. Nevertheless, HCMC would try to allocate the capital as well as the cost for the site clearance for other sections of the ring road in the city.

To accelerate the progress of the Binh Chuan - National Highway 22 and National Highway 22-Ben Luc sections, the agencies in charge of site clearance and construction should be determined. If they are not executed under the build-operate-transfer model, the State budget should be sourced.

Regarding the site clearance work, the biggest obstacle facing the Ring Road No. 3 project, Minister of Transport Nguyen Van The said the Government would propose the National Assembly issue a resolution to assign localities to clear the site for sections passing through their localities and those doing the job slowly must take responsibility.

Localities should immediately clear the site, resettle affected households, relocate infrastructure facilities and separate the projects into packages worth less than VND10 trillion each to complete the project by 2025, The added.

According to Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh, localities should take the initiative to execute the project. Localities’ budgets should be sourced for short sections with large land funds. Land lots along the sections will be auctioned later to refund the local budgets and invest in infrastructure.

HCMC Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong also pinpointed difficulties facing the Ring Road No. 3 project at a recent meeting with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. The road is a key traffic project of the city and the starting point of HCMC-Moc Bai and HCMC-Chon Thanh expressways, so Phong proposed the Government direct the immediate execution of the remaining sections so they can be completed in the 2021-2025 period.

In addition to Ring Road 3, the second ring road project, which is 64 kilometers long and passes through eight districts, was planned 14 years ago but only 50 kilometers of it has been completed. Further, the Ring Road No. 4 project, which will have a length of 198 kilometers, pass through Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, HCMC and Long An and require an estimated investment of VND100 trillion, remains on paper although it was approved in 2013.

SGT

Expressway connecting central coastal localities ready for opening to traffic

The La Son-Tuy Loan expressway connecting Thua Thien-Hue Province and Da Nang City, part of the North-South expressway, is now ready for opening to traffic.