Japanese press not to upbeat on Vietnam’s high speed railway project

As heard that Japan could become the major contractor of Vietnam’s nearly $56 billion high speed railway project, the country’s media massively commented that Vietnam was too ambitious as wanting to put the work in use soon.

As posted by Asahi newspaper on May 26, Japan’s plan to export the Shinkansen high-speed railway technology to Vietnam is nearly finished but the obstacles are increasing as some officials of Vietnam’s National Assembly protested against the technology import and questioned “does Vietnam really need a high-speed railway at this time?”

Vietnamese government submitted the North-South high speed railway project to National Assembly’s meeting on May 20, and expects to obtain an approval by late June.

In a recent Tokyo visit, minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc told Japanese officials that Vietnam will pass the plan of building 1,500-km Shinkansen system linking Hanoi with HCM City.

As planned, the project will be finished by 2035, which will help shorten the time to travel between two cities from 29 hours to six hours only. Vietnamese government expects it would complete Hanoi-Vinh section (300 km) and HCM City-Nha Trang section (360 km in length) by 2020.

Whilst the majority of officials at NA meeting supported Shinkansen project, others said that Vietnam needs to have investment priority for more urgent infrastructure works such as inside urban road system. Also, some people had doubts on the efficiency of using express trains when the current aviation services could not well-meet the demand of travelling between Hanoi and HCM City.

The costs for building the express railway raised many arguments at NA meetings. If the project is approved, Hanoi itself will have to raise 70 percent of total investment amount of $55.8 billion. The remainder will rely on ODA of Japan and loans of ADB as well as other organisations, according to the government’s estimation. But no source confirmed that how much Japan will fund Vietnam’s express railway project.

Vietnam’s current railway system has only one lane and not been modernised. So a lot of Japanese officials did not believe that the express train technology will be carried out in Vietnam quickly as expected.

Vietnamese officials want to start the service launching within 10 years as of the groundbreaking date. But, in a May visit to Hanoi, Japanese traffic minister Seiji Maehara warned that the service launching plan of Vietnam was excessively ambitious.

If being passed, the project will have to seek public opinions and call for bidding prior to the official work-start scheduled in 2012.
Kyodo news firm said that Minister Seiji Maehara proposed Japanese government to consider total aids for the project if Vietnam party shows more flexibility.

Talking with Vietnamese traffic and transportation minister Ho Nghia Dung, Maehara proposed Vietnam to shorten the length of express railway and delay the time of starting to launch services on the express railway because in his point of view, it will be very difficult to finish a part of the work by 2020 as scheduled.

According to Daily Yomiuri, apart from the project in Vietnam, Japan is trying to obtain contracts on building a 13,700 km express railway with total investment capital of $13 billion in US.

Vnexpress

Tags: Vietnam Infrastructure, Vietnam high speed railway project