A delegation of Japanese experts who specialise in urban railway services, led by Eguchi Shuji, Director of the International Affairs Office at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, is currently visiting to Vietnam to seek out opportunities to invest in Hanoi’s future urban railway network.
The delegation met with the Vice Chairman of Hanoi People’s Committee, Nguyen Van Khoi, on December 1. Representatives from the Japanese Embassy, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)), the Tokyo Metro, a leading Japanese group in railway construction and officials from a number of Hanoi’s metropolitan agencies also attended.
Khoi informed the participants of the scale of the city’s population and pointed out that the only public transport service in the city are buses, which are not meeting public demand.
Khoi said that Hanoi in accordance with its transport development plans until 2020 will build five urban railways lines to connect the inner city with adjacent urban areas. A pilot project to build a 12-km section of the line from Nhon on the city’s outskirts to Hanoi Railway Station is already under construction.
Todayyoshi Tohama from the Tokyo Metro Group said that Japan’s first railway line was built by his group in 1927. So far Tokyo has 13 lines, of which nine are under Tokyo Metro’s management. Combined they make up 891 km and carry 6.3 million passengers per day or 76 percent of the users of all public transport services.
He also said his group is eager to assist Hanoi to manage and operate its railway services as well as train its personnel./.
