HCMC – The Export-Import Bank of Korea (Kexim) has written to the HCMC chairman and the Management Authority for Urban Railways (MAUR) of HCMC, proposing conducting an investment study for the second phase of the city’s metro line No. 5 project under the public-private partnership (PPP) format.
The bank will soon allocate capital to update the prefeasibility study for the project, running from the Bay Hien Intersection in Tan Binh District to the Can Giuoc Coach Station in Binh Chanh District. The prefeasibility study will cover the technical, financial and legal aspects, news site Vietnamplus reported.
Members of its research team and participating investors are experienced in building and operating urban railways, including the Metro Line No. 9 in South Korea’s capital of Seoul, which was also developed under the PPP model.
According to MAUR, on January 19, the authority met with some investors and consulting firms from South Korea to discuss the investment study for the project.
At the meeting, Kexim, some groups and consulting firms delivered a plan to update the prefeasibility study, whose final version is expected to be submitted at the end of this year.
The prefeasibility study for the second phase of the metro line No. 5 project had earlier been financed by the Korea International Cooperation Agency. However, the project could not be funded through official development assistance (ODA) loans, so the PPP format is expected to be applied.
HCMC’s fifth metro line project, which was designed to be 23.39 kilometers long, was planned to be executed in two phases. In the first phase, an 8.8-kilometer section from Bay Hien Intersection to Saigon Bridge will be built at an estimated cost of US$1.66 billion, sourced from ODA loans from the Spanish Government, the Asian Development Bank, the European Investment Bank and the German Development Bank.
Meanwhile, the remaining section, which will have a total length of some 14.5 kilometers, will be developed in the second phase.
