Aiming to finish ahead of schedule
During the recent Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday, construction sites for key projects in the city, such as the Xuyen Tam Canal and Ring Road 3, remained active to ensure their progress.
At the same time, other major projects have been directed by Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Duoc to accelerate procedures for commencement on April 30 and May 19 this year. Notably, the Ring Road 4 project aims to commence construction on May 19, while Phase 1 of the Ho Chi Minh City–Moc Bai Expressway is expected to complete investor selection in April.
This year, the city has been assigned nearly VND148 trillion (US$5.6 billion) in public investment capital by the Prime Minister, up 22.6 percent compared to 2025 and accounting for about 14.8 percent of the country’s total public investment capital. Up to now, more than VND129 trillion (nearly US$5 billion), equivalent to 87.5 percent of the assigned capital, has been fully allocated in detail, with centrally funded capital reaching 100 percent allocation.
In the first two months, disbursement reached nearly VND13 trillion (US$496 million), or 8.8 percent of the plan, an increase of 6.2 percentage points compared to the same period in 2025, when the rate stood at only 2.6 percent. This is a highly positive signal.
To achieve the 100 percent disbursement target for 2026, city departments, agencies, local authorities and project investors have been urged to act more decisively and proactively from the outset, as well as strengthen discipline and strictly handle delays caused by subjective reasons.
Removing land clearance bottlenecks
City leaders emphasized that public investment disbursement is a crucial driver for achieving Ho Chi Minh City’s growth targets.
The municipal Department of Agriculture and Environment has strengthened land clearance policies from the three localities prior to their merger to create a unified framework for implementation. It has also developed an application to manage site clearance work, providing detailed and continuously updated information on about 200 projects involving compensation funds across the city.
The department has been assigned to coordinate with wards and communes to urgently complete compensation, support, resettlement and handover of remaining land for Ring Road 3 and expressway projects passing through the city within March.
Authorities are also strengthening public outreach efforts to ensure residents’ legitimate rights and interests, based on the principle that “new housing must be at least equal to or better than the old place."
Meanwhile, the authorization granted by the Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee to wards, communes and special zones to decide on a number of Group B and Group C public investment projects has created a more favorable mechanism.
Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction Tran Quang Lam said that around 100 localities have so far established project management boards, which also include responsibilities for overseeing compensation and site clearance.
At a recent socio-economic working session for February this year, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Duoc tasked the municipal Department of Finance and the HCMC Department of Internal Affairs with proposing criteria for rewarding effective land clearance performance, to be finalized in the first quarter.
According to HCMC Chairman Nguyen Van Duoc, land clearance is crucial, as projects can only move forward and double-digit growth targets can only be achieved once sites are cleared. Therefore, localities and units that perform well in this work should be duly rewarded to help speed up infrastructure development.
