The Management Board for Waterway Projects under the Vietnam Department for Domestic Waterways on Sept. 1 signed a consultancy contract with two French partners.

The 10 million USD contract was part of a World Bank funded project (WB6) to boost waterway transport in the Northern Delta.

Under the contract, Compagnie Nationale De Rhone and Tractebel Engineering of France will help the Vietnamese side with study, technical design, compiling bidding files for the second phase and supervising the implementation of the first and second phases of the project.
The seven-year project, starting from 2009, will cost 201.5 million USD, with the World Bank providing a loan of 171.5 million USD and the balance coming from the Vietnamese Government.

The project was designed to upgrade major waterway corridors and river ports in the northern region in a bid to reduce transport costs and improve the quality of transport services, contributing to improving local people’s living standards and regional socio-economic development.

Waterways corridors linking Viet Tri and Quang Ninh through Duong river and Hanoi and the East Sea through Lach Giang estuary will be upgraded, while new ports will be built in Phu Tho and Ninh Binh province./.