Work on the runway for Vietnam’s Long Thanh airport will begin in December almost two years after the project’s groundbreaking ceremony. It follows calls from the country’s prime minister to expedite the work.
Nguyen Van Hung, an official at the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), said tenders had been launched to find a contractor to build the airport’s runways, taxiways and apron, reports Vietnamese news site Dautu Online.
“Due to international bidding, they will take about two months to complete. It is expected that the construction of the airport’s items will be started in December,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen added that agencies of the Ministry of Transport had completed their appraisal of 90% of the airport’s technical design documents.
Long Thanh is to be located on a site in Dong Nai Province, about 40km east of Ho Chi Minh City. ACV has raised some $6.1bn to carry out the scheme, although the expected construction cost for the first phase is $4.1bn.
This part of the scheme consists of one 4km-long runway with a width of 75m, as well as a 373,000 sq m terminal designed to serve 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tonnes of cargo a year.
This phase is expected to be complete in 2025. Two further phases will then be undertaken, and are due to finish before 2040. They will add three runways and four passenger terminals, allowing the airport to accommodate 100 million passengers and 5 million tons of cargo.
As well as the airport itself, Vietnam is planning a 38km light rail connection with Thu Thiem, just east of Ho Chi Minh City, and a rail connection with a future North-South high-speed line.
So far, ACV has made a start on levelling the ground, installing a drainage system and completing the piling work on the passenger terminal. Work on the above ground part of the terminal is expected to begin next month.
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