Seamless transport in Long An sights

Long An aims to develop seamless transport infrastructure, Photos: Long An online newspaper

Through five years of implementation, many projects have been put into operation, contributing a great deal to improving the rural transport infrastructure system in Long An’s key economic zone and strengthening links with different industrial zones (IZs) and clusters (ICs). These have laid the foundation for investment attraction, gearing local economic structure towards increased proportion of industry and services with lower agriculture percentage, supplementing income sources for local budget, and pushing up the province’s socioeconomic development.

Back in 2015, breakthrough programmes and several major works were put into the pipeline for the province, mostly in transport infrastructure development. Accordingly, the programmes on mobilising all resources into building transport infrastructure featured a list of 14 arterial roads in diverse provincial districts such as Ben Luc, Duc Hoa, Can Giuoc, and Can Duoc that connect to different IZs and ICs, and particularly to Long An International Port and transport routes to Ho Chi Minh City.

The key works included the Provincial Road No.830 (the Duc Hoa-Tan Tap section), the National Highway No.50, Tan An city’s ring road; and an urban transport axis connecting to Ho Chi Minh City.

Leveraging these achievements, the Party Congress resolution for the province covering 2020 towards 2025 has highlighted the need to invest further in three more key transport infrastructure works: Tan An city’s ring road and a bridge crossing Vam Co Tay River (remaining section); the Provincial Road No.827E site clearance (section from beginning of the road to Vam Co Dong River); and the Provincial Road 830E (section from the T-junction to the Provincial Road No.830 in Can Duoc district).

The ring road and bridge crossing Vam Co Tay River is being carried forward from the previous development period.

Provincial links

Efforts are meanwhile underway to build a section from Thu Thua to the National Highway No.1 through the headquarters of Tan An People’s Committee and using World Bank funding; and a section from the National Highway No.1 to the Provincial Road No.827A with Long An Department of Transport acting as the developer, with capital sourcing from the local budget. The next step involves completion of site clearance, building a bridge crossing Vam Co Tay River and a remaining road section. The project to build the Provincial Road No.830E involves building over 32km of road reaching urban highway standards. Construction consists of different phases, in which phase 1 involves building the 9km four-lane road section.

The Provincial Road No.827E involves building over 35km of road crossing the province. The road begins at Long Hau commune in Can Giuoc district and ends at Hiep Thanh commune in Chau Thanh district. The project consists of four components, of which three involve site clearance at different road sections and one involves on investment construction.

In light of Long An’s Party Congress Resolution, during 2021-2025 efforts will be focused on site clearance and building the road section from Tan Kim T-junction to Vam Co Dong River.

The total capital investment for site clearance work of these three key projects comes to around $630.3 million, in which $10.86 million goes to Tan An city’s ring road, $96.5 million is allocated to the Provincial Road No.830E, and the remainder is for the Provincial Road No.827E.

The investment value for the construction part of these three projects is estimated at $135.4 million, in which about $32.8 million goes to building Tan An city’s ring road and $504.3 million goes to the Provincial Road No.830E scheme. The remaining sum is for building the Provincial Road No.827E’s section from the starting point in Can Giuoc district to Vam Co Dong River. For the remaining parts, investment capital would be raised from other sources.

According to Long An People’s Committee, the province would scale up efforts to ensure sufficient capital sources for key transport infrastructure projects along with the venture progress. Efforts are also being made on assigning concrete tasks to each department, section, and the people’s committees in relevant locations.

These key projects, once completed and put into use, will create a seamless transport infrastructure system for the province, ensuring smoother connection between different areas in the province and with other localities, particularly Ho Chi Minh City, helping the province to further allure investors.

Significantly, the Provincial Road No.827E connecting Ho Chi Minh City and Long An with Tien Giang is of strategic importance. Once completed, the road will not only create transport breakthroughs and help ramp up investment attraction in industry-trade and services development in relevant districts of the province, but will also greatly facilitate goods transportation in the southwestern coastal provinces of Ca Mau, Soc Trang, Tra Vinh, and Ben Tre.

Well positioned

Part of the southern key economic zone, Long An enjoys a strategic position as a gateway from Ho Chi Minh City and southeastern region to cities and provinces across the Mekong Delta. The province has a border to Cambodia and is also home to Long An International Port, which is accessible to 70,000DWT ships. The province has abundant material resources favourable for the development of agricultural products and food processing industries provided by agricultural production areas in the province and other localities in the neighbourhood, with the delta being the country’s most important agricultural production region.

In addition, Long An features a vast land fund for industrial development, accommodating 62 ICs covering over 3,100ha in total area. Some 35 IZs spanning nearly 12,000ha in total were added to the national IZ development planning. These zones are positioned in a 30-40km radius from Ho Chi Minh City, with ready-to-serve infrastructure that will suit investors.

Contiguous to Ho Chi Minh City, Long An also accommodates many arterial roads of regional and national significance such as the national highways No.1 and No.50, Ho Chi Minh City-Trung Luong and Ben Luc-Long Thanh expressways, among others.