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Northern waterways set for boost
A project to improve transport on the Northern Delta will begin next year
A US$201.5 million project to boost waterway transport in the Northern Delta will improve the country’s competitiveness, according to Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Hong Truong.
The World Bank (WB) is putting $171.5 million towards the cost of the WB6 Project, with the rest coming from the Vietnamese Government.
Work is due to begin next year, and is expected to take six years.
The project is designed to reduce transport costs as well as travel time and boost private-sector investment.
According to Truong, 73.5 per cent of the investment capital or $147 million will be spent on building a multi-vehicle transport corridor.
Truong said $66.25 million would go to upgrading around 280km of waterways linking Viet Tri City with Quang Ninh Province, which would include the Bach Dang, Cam, Han, Kinh Thay, Thai Binh, Duong and Hong (Red) rivers. The project would also link Viet Tri City with 259km of waterways between the East Sea and Ha Noi, taking in the Ninh Co and Hong (Red) rivers.
Some $66 million will be spent on dredging the Lach Giang estuary to make it suitable for 2,000-tonne dead-weight ships. At present, only ships less that 600 DWT can navigate the estuary.
A further $7 million will be spent on expanding the Northern Delta’s two largest river ports – the Viet Tri port that will be upgraded to accommodate an annual 1.1 million tonnes, and the Ninh Phuc port in Ninh Binh Province, which will have a capacity of 1.6 million tonnes by 2010.
In addition to investment in major river ports, 30 new roads will be built.
However, the general director of the Management Board for Waterway Projects (under Department for Domestic Waterways), Le Huy Thang, said contractors for the projects had still to be selected.
"With a total of 28 bid packs to install and buy special equipment for construction in rivers, most of the bid packs are worth more than $2 million. It may be difficult to select bidders for the project," he said.
According to WB regulations, construction projects worth more than $2 million must be open to international firms. State-owned enterprises are not eligible to participate in the bidding process.
However, it is unlikely that contracts in the region of $2 million would attract interest from abroad. There are however two projects worth more than $10 million.
Thang said local firms were best suited to take on smaller projects such as buying equipment, marker buoys and construction work worth less than $2 million.
Bidding is expected to begin shortly after the WB signs the capital loan agreement at the end of this month.
VNN
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