Southern hub in rush for development

Illustrative image. (Source: baogiaothong.vn)

HCM City (VNA) - The Southern economic hub is rushing to realise its traffic infrastructure plan in which nearly 700km of expressway is expected to be built over the next five years.

In the national master plan on the development of the inland expressway network towards 2020, the southern economic hub – including eight localities of HCM City, Tay Ninh, Binh Phuoc, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Long An and Tien Giang – will have four new routes.

They are the 76km long Bien Hoa-Phu My connecting Dong Nai and Ba Ria – Vung Tau provinces, the 69km linking HCM City to Thu Dau Mot in Binh Duong province and Chon Thanh in Binh Phuoc province, and another one running from HCM Ciy to Moc Bai in Tay Ninh province. The last and the longest expressway project will be around 208km starting from Dau Giay in Dong Nai through Lien Khuong and to Da Lat in Lam Dong province.

A particular network of ring expressway in HCM City is also mapped in the master plan, including the Ring Road No.3 and Ring Road No.4 which are 89km and 198km long, respectively.

An estimated 313 trillion VND (13.9 billion USD) is needed to develop the traffic infrastructure in the Southern economic hub over the next five years, according to the authorities.

According to Transport Deputy Minister Nguyen Ngoc Dong, the Ministry of Transport was and still is investing in the road infrastructure connecting the Southeastern region, the Mekong Delta and the Southern economic hub. The three key expressway projects of the ministry are the HCM City-Trung Lương, HCM City-Long Thanh-Dau Giay and the route Ben Luc-Long Thanh scheduled to be finished in 2017.

The 40km long HCM City – Trung Luong expressway, opened for traffic in February 2012, is deemed a key connection between HCM City and the Mekong Delta region.
The expressway passes through three localities of HCM City, Long An and Tien Giang, helping to shorten the traveling time from the biggest city in the southern region to Tien Giang by two thirds, down to 30 minutes from 90 before.

The latest HCM City-Long Thanh-Dau Giay expressway, officially opened in February last year, also dramatically brought down the time moving to neighbouring localities. The 55km road now only takes travellers some 20 minutes to go from HCM City to Long Thanh instead of one hour, or just one hour instead of three hours to go to Dau Giay.-VNA