At the event, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transportation and Public Works, Tran Quang Lam, proposed the municipal People’s Committee delegate the Department of Finance to promptly advise and submit the medium-term public investment plan for the 2021-2025 period and allocate capital to carry out investment preparation work in 2025 for 49 projects with a total capital requirement of VND15,000 billion (US$587 million) and works that have already been approved for investment but have not yet received funding, such as the pilot project on improving traffic and renovating public spaces on Thai Van Lung Street in District 1’s Ben Nghe Ward.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transportation and Public Works also proposed the municipal People’s Committee issue a plan to implement Resolution 188/2025/QH15 on piloting a number of specific and special mechanisms and policies to develop the urban railway network system in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and a decision on the establishment of the Steering Committee for the development of the Ho Chi Minh City urban railway network soon.
Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Transportation Works Construction Investment Project Management Board, Luong Minh Phuc, said that the board has currently implemented 30 key projects. He proposed the municipal People’s Committee continue to maintain a task force to address obstacles and drastically delegate departments to cut at least 30 percent of administrative procedures and reduce 30 percent of the time to accelerate the progress of the projects.
According to Mr. Phuc, contractor selection, technical design appraisal, site clearance, infrastructure relocation, and planning adjustments take a lot of time.
Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Urban Infrastructure Construction Investment Project Management Board, Dau An Phuc, stated that the unit is making efforts to recover the progress of the works and believed that 2025 will see a breakthrough for the rapid implementation of the projects.
Regarding the prioritization of capital allocation for transport projects, Deputy Director of the Department of Finance, Pham Trung Kien, said that in 2025, the capital allocated for the transportation sector has accounted for more than half of Ho Chi Minh City's total public investment budget. Therefore, accelerating the progress of transportation projects will contribute significantly to the city's disbursement of public investment capital.
For example, four BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) projects aimed at upgrading key gateway roads, including National Highways 1, 13, 22, and the North-South axis road approved by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council, have a land clearance cost of more than VND34,000 billion (US$1.33 billion), while the Van Thanh canal dredging and improvement project has a compensation cost of over VND5,000 billion (US$195.6 million).
Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, Bui Xuan Cuong, also directed departments, Thu Duc City, and districts to strongly focus on compensation and site clearance work in 2025. Last year, the city disbursed tens of thousands of billion VND in a short period thanks to accelerating the land clearance process.
In his conclusion, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee, Nguyen Van Duoc, emphasized the important role of the transportation sector. He stressed that transportation is the lifeblood of the economy, contributing to exploiting potential and mobilizing resources of the country and localities. Transportation is also a key criterion in evaluating the development level of a nation, locality, or region. Therefore, the leadership of Ho Chi Minh City will focus on directing relevant departments to implement key tasks, including site clearance work and capital allocation, that are regarded as top priorities.
He suggested the political system innovate its thinking based on the principles of proactivity, dynamism, creativity, and flexibility, especially in the transportation sector, in order to achieve the fastest implementation.
The Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee also required departments and localities at all levels in the city to increase their proactivity in the work, proactively propose solutions, and mobilize all resources while ensuring legal compliance.
