The Ho Chi Minh City-Moc Bai Highway project is expected to reduce traffic on National Highway 22, which is the only road connecting Ho Chi Minh City and Tay Ninh province. VAN CHAU/VIET NAM NEWS
The authorities of Ho Chi Minh City and Tay Ninh province are building shopping malls and service facilities along the Ho Chi Minh City-Moc Bai Highway to raise revenue for construction of the highway.
On Monday, the authorities in both localities agreed to clear land at the intersection of Ring Road No 3 and No 4 to build parking lots, shopping malls and service facilities, according to the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee. Compensation will be paid to affected residents.
Vo Van Hoan, deputy chairman of the People’s Committee, assigned the city’s Department of Planning and Investment and Department of Natural Resources and Environment to work with other agencies to submit a plan on the construction of these facilities by Wednesday. He also asked them to organise bidding to select investors.
The highway, which is being implemented under a public-private partnership, will connect the city with Moc Bai International Border Gate in Tay Ninh province.
The road will run from Ring Road No 3 in Ho Chi Minh City’s Hoc Mon district to Moc Bai, an international border gate between Vietnam and Cambodia in the southern Tay Ninh province.
The first phase will involve the construction of two separate sections of the highway.
The first will be a 33km section from Ho Chi Minh City to Tay Ninh province’s Trang Bang district, which will have four lanes, with a maximum speed of 120kph for vehicles.
The second section from Trang Bang to Moc Bai will be 20.5km long and have four lanes with a designed speed of 80kph.
After the two sections are completed, the second phase of construction will expand the expressway from six to eight lanes.
It will be completed in two phases and cost 10.7 trillion dong ($459.36 million).
Both localities will pay land clearance compensation from their respective budgets. Ho Chi Minh City will pay two trillion dong and Tay Ninh one trillion dong.
The remaining construction costs will be covered by private investors who will be selected in a bidding process or appointed by the government.
Currently, the only road connecting Ho Chi Minh City and Tay Ninh province is National Highway 22, which has become overloaded.
The Ho Chi Minh City-Moc Bai Highway project will meet the transport demand of the region and fit with the national highway network plan.
In particular, the highway will shorten the time it takes to travel from Ho Chi Minh City to the international border gate, and strengthen the connection between Vietnam’s key southern economic zones and the East-West economic corridor, including Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
It will also connect to the Asian Highway Network through Cambodia’s Phnom Penh-Bavet high-speed expressway. VIET NAM NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
