Vietnam’s locomotive industry on the right tracks

Vietnam’s railway industry now possesses the capacity for the local manufacture and assembly of locomotives, allowing the nation to meet domestic transport demands and move towards exporting the Vietnamese-built engines to other regional countries.

This statement was made by Nguyen Huu Bang, CEO and General Secretary of the Vietnam Railway Corporation (VRC), at a conference held in Hanoi on Oct. 9.

The conference reviewed a project to manufacture and assemble 20 diesel engines using loans from the Development Fund, which was considered the first step in the development of Vietnam ’s fledgling locomotive-manufacturing industry.

The project’s total investment capital stands at 261 billion VND, 70 percent of which was funded by loans from the Development Fund, 15 percent from the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, and the remaining 15 percent from the VRC’s coffers.

The first locomotive under the project, which has a design capacity of 1,900 horsepower and a maximum speed of 120 km/h, was assembled in China , with the remaining 19 engines manufactured in Vietnam using technical assistance from Chinese engineers.

VNA

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