HCMC – The Ministry of Transport will send the Politburo a major project to develop a high-speed railway connecting the north and south of the country in September.
Following the directives from the Party Central Committee and the prime minister, the ministry has gathered feedback from relevant agencies and completed the feasibility study of the express railway project, the ministry said in a dispatch sent to the national steering committee for key transport projects.
As the project is being appraised by the State Appraisal Council, it will be reported to the Politburo for consideration and approval in September, the local media reported.
The north-south high-speed rail route will run across 20 cities and provinces from Hanoi City to HCMC, with a total cost of more than US$58 billion. The line is set to allow trains to run at a maximum 320 kilometers per hour.
Of the total capital, some US$2 billion will be used for site clearance, US$31.6 billion for construction, while the rest will be spent on other costs.
As planned, the 1,545-kilometer-long railway project will be executed in two phases. In the first phase, the two rail sections, Hanoi-Vinh and Nha Trang-HCMC, with a total length of 665 kilometers, will get off the ground in the 2027-2031 period. The two sections will be opened to traffic in 2032.
The second phase will start work on the Vinh-Nha Trang section, which will stretch some 890 kilometers and require nearly US$34 billion in investment.
