State Appraisal Council for North-South Expressway to be establish

The State Appraisal Council will collect representatives from several ministries to check the pre-feasibility report of the North-South Expressway

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung was appointed as the chairman of the State Appraisal Council, with a deputy minister of Planning and Investment as vice chairman.

The list of the remaining members of the council, who will be hailing from other ministries, will have to be submitted to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) by August 10. The Ministry of Transport was put in charge of providing sufficient documents related to the appraisal of the project’s pre-feasibility study report.

As an appraisal council, the body will appraise projects related to the North-South Expressway, a key project of national importance. It will have the right to request relevant documents from investors and contracted consultants as well as hire domestic and foreign consultancy units to ensure the independent and objective assessment of the works. The council will be dissolved once the appraisal work is completed.

The Eastern Cluster of the North-South Expressway project will span 12 cities and provinces from Ha Tinh to Ca Mau. The project includes 12 component projects with three sections, including Ha Tinh-Quang Tri (267km), Quang Ngai-Nha Trang (353km), and Can Tho-Ca Mau (109km). According to the Ministry of Transport, there are two construction plans for the project.

Under the first plan, all 12 components projects would be implemented under the public-private partnership (PPP) model by 2025. These sub-projects would have a total investment capital of VND146.99 trillion ($6.4 billion), half of which would come from the state budget and the other half from investors and other sources.

The second plan would involve nine PPP components, while the financing of three others would be decided later because a section of Ho Chi Minh Road crosses the planning zone of the North-South Expressway.

In this case, the nine PPP projects would have a capital value of VND118.67 trillion ($5.16 billion), including VND61.63 trillion ($2.7 billion) from the state budget and VND57.04 trillion ($2.48 billion) from other sources.