A train for HCM City Metro Line No. 1 is received in October last year. The city is planning to call for foreign investment for seven projects, including four metro lines. (Photo: VNA)HCMCity (VNS/VNA) - HCM City is seeking foreign investment over thenext five years for seven major projects, including four metro lines.
The projects include the second phase of the Metro Line No. 2,which connects Ben Thanh market with Thu Duc district’s Thu Thiem ward andTham Luong to Tay Ninh bus station in Cu Chi district.
The second construction phase will be 9.1 kilometres inlength and cost around 1.4 billion USD. It will help connect the city’snorthwestern regions to its centre, as well as connect the Thu Thiem railwayline to the future Long Thanh Airport in Dong Nai province.
The second project, Metro Line No. 3A (Ben Thanh – Tan Kien),is 19.5 kilometres long and costs 1.8 billion USD. It will connect tometro lines at the upcoming Ben Thanh Station in District 1 to transporttravelers from the city centre to southwest provinces.
The third is Metro Line No.4 (Thanh Xuan – Hiep Phuoc IndustrialPark), which is 36.2 kilometres long and costs over 4.5 billion USD.It will run across the city’s urban areas and Ben Thanh.
The last line is the first phase of Metro Line No. 5 (Bay Hienintersection – Sai Gon Bridge), which is nearly 9 kilometres and will cost over1.7 billion USD. This line was among the metro lines prioritised forinvestment in 2012 – 2015 and 2016 – 2020, but was unsuccessful inattracting investment.
For this metro line, the city wants to work withgovernmental organisations with official development assistance funds, largecorporations, and traffic infrastructure investors that are financially andtechnologically capable.
Three other projects include Thu Thiem financial centre, acentre for conferences, exhibitions, hotel and commercial services, and aRach Chiec Sport Complex, all of which are to be built in Thu Duc district.
The project proposal is part of a report on national projects tocall for FDI, which the city People’s Committee has recently submitted to theMinistry of Planning and Investment.
The city has been facing challenges findinginvestment in such traffic projects because investors do not seethe benefits of investing in the projects or are hesitant to investbecause they are all done on a massive scale and require a vast amount ofcapital.
Regulations on private – public partnership investmentin traffic and railway projects still contain some weaknesses, accordingto the city./.
