VietNamNet Bridge – It is still unclear if the State evaluation council on the Long Thanh international airport would present the project at the upcoming National Assembly’s session in May 2014, because the investor still cannot clarify how the project would be funded.

The state council has decided to give the project’s investment report back to the investor, requesting to provide more information relating to many different issues.

The report was submitted to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) in August 2013.

Reasoning that the Tan Son Nhat International Airport would become overloaded with the maximum capacity of 25 million passengers a year and the high growth rate of 11.5 percent, the Ministry of Transport and the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) have insisted on building a new airport to improve the air transport capacity.

ACV has programmed the first phase (there would be 3 phases) of the airport development. An international airport with the capacity of 25 million passengers a year would be set up in 2016-2025, which would help ease the overloading of the Tan Son Nhat airport.

In February 2014, the State council requested ACV to elaborate on five main issues: 1) why is it necessary to build a new airport instead of expanding the existing Tan Son Nhat or Bien Hoa airports? 2) the project’s scale 3) the transport link 4) site clearance and resettlement 5) the investment estimates and expected investment efficiency.

According to MPI Minister Bui Quang Vinh, this is the biggest single investment project so far ($7.8 billion) and the most land consuming project (more than 5,000 hectares).

ACV’s General Director Nguyen Nguyen Hung has submitted the report with more details on the five issues. However, the report still cannot satisfy the critics.

According to Nguyen Xuan Tu, Head of the inter-ministerial appraisal team, the pre-feasibility report is still unconvincing enough.

The report only showed a vague solution to the capital mobilization that the capital would come from different sources, from ODA (official development assistance), government bonds, and private capital.

However, the investor could not show the concrete solutions to the capital mobilization. Therefore, Tu said, it is still impossible to analyze the feasibility of the capital mobilization plan.

“It is necessary to point out how the capital would be mobilized,” said La Ngoc Khue, former Deputy Minister of Transport, now one of the two critics.

Both the Minister of Transport Dinh La Thang and MPI Minister Bui Quang Vinh have asked the investor to clarify where the capital for the project would come from.

“Mobilizing capital is always the most difficult task,” Thang said, adding that the ODA is not as cheap as people think, because the borrower has to fulfill a lot of commitments.

Vinh went on to say that the investor needs to think more carefully to suggest feasible plans on the capital mobilization.

“The MPI’s plan on mobilizing medium and long term capital submitted to the government will bear the strict control stipulated by the Public Investment Law,” Vinh said. “Meanwhile, the spending of the VND170 trillion capital from the government bonds which the National Assembly has approved for the 2014-2016 has been fixed already.”

TBKTSG