Long Thanh Airport project awaits investment: minister

Transport Minister Dinh La Thang (R) hands over a zoning plan report on the Long Thanh International Airport to Dong Nai province’s chairman Dinh Quoc Thai at the function in the province last Friday.

>> Long Thanh airport project approved

Appropriate policies would help attract investment to the country’s biggest airport project, the minister told a function held in the southern province last Friday to announce the Prime Minister’s decision on a zoning plan for the big-ticket project.

As the project’s owner, the Southern Airports Corporation is now working with relevant agencies on a pre-feasibility study for the airport project.

The first phase of this airport, about 40km from downtown HCMC and some 43km from Tan Son Nhat International Airport, will require more than $6.74 billion, including $696.5 million for site clearance and compensation.

According to the zoning plan, construction of runways, taxiways, aircraft parking areas, approach roads, site clearance and compensation, power and water supply facilities will be financed by the State budget and official development assistance loans.

The decision signed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in June this year allows corporate funds and public-private partnerships for construction of passenger and cargo terminals, the operation building, jet fuel supply and food processing facilities and other commercial components.

Transport Minister Thang said the pre-feasibility study should be completed by the end of this year before investment and construction preparations for the 5,000-hectare Long Thanh International Airport.

Planned from 2015 to 2020, the project’s first phase will comprise of two parallel runways able to handle the world’s biggest commercial passenger Airbus A380, parking lots for 34 airplanes, taxiways, terminals for 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of cargo per year, a management building, an aviation industry park and other facilities.

The second phase until 2030 envisages Long Thanh will have three runways 4,000 meters long each, terminals for 50 million passengers and 1.5 million tons of cargo a year. A fourth runway will be built in the third phase planned after 2030, and the airport will then have terminals for 100 million passengers and five million tons per year.

When in place, Long Thanh will replace Tan Son Nhat now in HCMC as Vietnam’s biggest international airport and become a major air transport hub in Southeast Asia. From 2020 to 2035, Long Thanh will be able to handle up to 90 per cent of the international flights and 20 per cent domestic services in the south.

Minister Thang said Long Thanh would be linked with major road and rail expressways, including the HCMC-Long Thanh-Dau Giay, Bien Hoa-Vung Tau, HCMC-Nha Trang, Thu Thiem-Long Thanh, and Beltway No. 4 in HCMC.

Dong Nai province’s chairman Dinh Quoc Thai told reporters at the function that zoning preparations were underway for urban development and supporting structures on 21,000 hectares around Long Thanh to back this international airport project to progress as planned.

Thai expected that the new international airport would create a fresh momentum for socio-economic development not only in HCMC’s neighboring province but also the whole Southern Focal Economic Zone.

However, Thai said to put into use the Long Thanh International Airport by 2020, it was important to ensure fast pace of site clearance and compensation as well as to build resettlement areas for affected families.