Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung will be the chairman of a special state evaluation council to evaluate the feasibility study report of the project on land revocation, compensation, and support for the resettlement of affected local residents, which is an individual component of the Long Thanh International Airport project.

MPI will be in charge of the feasibility study of the component project 

Previously, the National Assembly (NA) approved Resolution No.38/2017/QH14 on separating the land revocation, compensation, and support for resettlement into a separate component project in which the government asked Dong Nai and relevant ministries to do a feasibility study and submit it to the National Assembly for approval in October 2017.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) will assess the feasibility study and submit it to the government before it is sent to the National Assembly.

The government instructed the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to review the policies related to compensation for lands acquired for the airport and file the assessment before August 15 this year.

Regarding the costs for site clearance, including the construction of resettlement and cemetery areas, the NA Standing Committee said that based on the obtained information and the latest updated prices from the Dong Nai People’s Committee, the estimated cost is about VND23 trillion ($1 billion),  including VND5.03 trillion ($221.32 million) for building resettlement areas.

The government agreed to allocate VND5 trillion ($220 million) in advance from the medium-term public investment plan for the 2016-2020 period, which was approved by the National Assembly for site clearance, compensation, and resettlement. However, this amount accounts for only 21.7 per cent of the actual funds necessary and it is still unknown where the remaining VND18 trillion ($793.6 million) will come from.

In a report sent to the NA, MPI said it will work with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Transport to consider using backup funds for medium-term public investment to finance the project as it is difficult to call for official development assistance (ODA) capital or capital from private enterprises for site clearance and compensation. However, according to the ministry, it would be hard to mobilise VND18 trillion ($793.6 million).

Long Thanh International Airport has a designed annual capacity of 100 million passengers and five million tonnes of cargo. The cost estimate of the whole project is VND336.630 trillion ($16.03 billion, in 2014 prices).

Of the total, the first phase is VND114.450 trillion, an equivalent of $5.45 billion. The project’s funding comes from the national budget, ODA, money from equitising SOEs in the aviation industry, Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) capital, and other sources, in accordance with laws and regulations.

VIR