CAN THO – Work began yesterday, December 19, on the Cho Gao Canal upgrade project’s second phase, with a total investment of over VND1.3 trillion. The canal is an arterial inland waterway linking the Mekong Delta and HCMC.
The project’s investor will dredge and expand a 10-kilometer-long canal section, build a protection embankment for the southern bank of the canal and build bridges and roads running through localities on the southern bank, such as Cho Gao Town, and the communes of Binh Phuc Nhut and Binh Phan in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang.
Once it is upgraded, the canal will meet the standards of a Grade 2 inland waterway route, with over 3.5 meters in depth and over 50 meters in width, enabling vessels to travel along the route more safely.
To implement the project, the government of Cho Gao District in Tien Giang had worked out costs for site clearance and compensation, built five resettlement areas for around 600 local households impacted by the project, with total funding for site clearance reaching around VND683 billion.
The project is expected to reach completion in 2023.
In 2004 the Ministry of Transport executed the project’s first phase in which the northern bank of the canal underwent upgradation.
Currently, around 2,000 watercraft transport goods on this 28-kilometer-long canal per day.
