HCMC – The HCMC government has written to the Ministry of Planning and Investment proposing extending the implementation of six projects whose investment capital is listed in the 2021 State budget.
Capital for the six projects involved in traffic and flood control worth VND1,900 billion should be transferred to the 2022 State budget investment plan, according to Thanh Nien newspaper.
HCMC experienced a severe fourth Covid-19 pandemic wave, heavily impacting many projects.
For instance, site clearance and compensation works on renovating the left bank of the Saigon River, stretching from the Cau Ngang canal to the Thu Thiem new urban area, could not be completed due to social distancing.
The Tham Luong – Ben Cat – Nuoc Len canal (connecting with Long An Province via the Cho Dem river and the Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces via the Saigon river) project has not yet completed its environmental impact assessment.
For building the An Phu intersection in Thu Duc City, after the social distancing period, the new investor has just held a competition for construction architecture, so it has not been eligible to complete the feasibility study and environmental impact assessment report. It is expected that in March 2022, the HCMC Government will approve the project investment.
Those are the projects using the State budget’s domestic capital.
Meanwhile, the projects using ODA capital allocated from the State budget have also met obstacles.
Work on the metro line 1 project (Ben Thanh – Suoi Tien) has been impacted by the undersupply of raw materials and labor.
As for the project of improving the urban water environment in the Tau Hu – Ben Nghe – Doi – Te canal basin (the second phase), due to Covid-19, it is difficult to invite enough foreign experts to implement the bidding packages. Similarly, the city’s environmental sanitation project’s second phase has also been affected as it could not invite experts.
