According to the updated plan of construction, which the Airport Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) submitted to the Ministry of Transport (MoT) last week, ACV intends to hold a contest to pick a design for the terminal this September.
Do Tat Binh, deputy general director of ACV, said that international bidders are going to receive an invitation to bid by the end of November. The company is going to spend a month evaluating the bids before starting negotiations. The decision will be announced at the end of January.
Then after ACV secures government approval on the feasibility report and makes the invitation to bid on Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) packages, the company is going to sell the bidding documents starting November 2019. Negotiations are going to start in February 2021, which would culminate in signing a contract in March.
Binh said that the process can be shortened if the company finds a contractor willing to do both the technical design and the feasibility study. Earlier, in March 2016, the company asked the MoT for approval to do let the same contractor do both jobs.
ACV also proposed that this contractor be allowed to do the technical design and the feasibility study at the same time for the terminal, the VIP guest house, the ACV office building, and other facilities as well as the flying area to further shorten the process.
ACV also requested permission to access the state budget to start site clearance immediately.
The construction of the airport includes many parts, each of which either uses money from the state budget, official development assistance (ODA), public-private partnership funds or draws financial support from other investors.
ACV proposed that the government let it borrow from the state budget and ODA of $3.53 billion at a preferential rate, and requested for direct management of the project.
What the stars mean:
★ Poor ★ ★ Promising ★★★ Good ★★★★ Very good ★★★★★ Exceptional