Vietnam aims to have 5,000 kilometres (km) of expressway roads by 2030 and over 9,000km by 2050.
According to Vietnam’s transport minister Nguyen Van The, it planned to reduce the market share of road transportation and increase the market shares of waterway, railway, aviation and seaway transportation. It is expected to reduce public investments in road and increase other ways of transportation’s public investments.
Infrastructure expert John Yeap of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law, said: “For Vietnam, a long and narrow nation, connectivity must be a national priority. Increasing people’s ability to travel will help alleviate congestion in high density areas and also open up more rural areas for development. Increasing expressways to 5,000km within the coming decade, a five-fold increase from the current number, will not be without its challenges given the amount of capital required. The market will therefore be looking to the new public-private partnership (PPP) law and the implementation of that investment framework as delivery of the programme will very likely require the participation of both the public and private sectors.”
Vietnam is currently operating 1,046km of expressways and building an additional 900 km.
Vietnam in February planned to develop the Tan Phu – Bao Loc expressway project with an VND 18.2 trillion ($791.3 million) investment via a PPP. The expressway is included in Vietnam’s expressway network development plan approved by the prime minister in 2016.
In July, Vietnam’s Ministry of Transport asked for funding of VND400 trillion ($17.4 billion) from state budget to build a network of expressways in domestic in the 2021 – 2025 period.
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