The World Bank on January 30 approved an additional financing of $156 million to the on-going Mekong Delta Transport Infrastructure Development Project, with an aim to relieving key bottlenecks in the main transport corridors in the Mekong Delta region and improving access of the poor to those corridors.
Specifically, the additional financing will be used to improve the standard of national trunk roads connecting the main economic hub of the Mekong Delta, to improve the standard of trunk waterways connecting the Northern and coastal delta areas to Can Tho and HCMC, and to improve the connectivity of poorer and more distant producer communities by upgrading feeder roads, ports, and landing stages at the district and provincial levels in the Mekong Delta.
By the time of completion at the end of 2015, the project is expected to reduce average rice barge travel time from Rach Gia to HCMC by 5 hours, average travel time by truck on the National Highway 91 by 10 percent, fatality rate on the highway by 15 percent, and accident rate on inland waterway corridor by 5 percent.
