Long Thanh airport investor begins work on two link roads

The Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) began construction Friday of two roads linking the Long Thanh International Airport with a national highway and expressway.

Deoca Group, a Vietnamese construction giant, leads a consortium of six companies that will build the roads at a total cost of VND2.63 trillion ($111.3 million). Their construction deadline is December 31, 2026.

The roads are part of sub-project No.3 under phase 1 of the mega airport being built in the southern province of Dong Nai.

The 4.3-kilometer road No.1 will connect the western side of the airport to National Highway 51, establishing a connection between the airport and HCMC and other provinces. With a design speed of 80 kilometers per hour, the road will also enable delivery of machines and equipment to the airport construction site.

The 3.5-kilometer road No.2, which will allow speeds of up to 100 kilometers per hour, will link the airport to the HCMC-Long Thanh-Dau Giay Expressway, a route linking HCMC with Dong Nai province, a manufacturing hub in southern Vietnam.

Construction of the Long Thanh International Airport’s first terminal is set to begin next month. Long Thanh district, where the airport is located, has basically completed site clearance of 1,810 hectares for the project and 722 hectares for reserved areas. Just one house remains to be cleared, local reports have said.

The Long Thanh International Airport is a mega project with a total investment of VND336.63 trillion ($14.12 billion) divided into three phases. The first phase, worth VND110 trillion, will consist of a runway, terminal and auxiliary facilities that can serve 25 million passengers per year. The project kicked off in 2021 and is expected to open in 2025.

The airport will be the nation’s biggest when complete and will reduce overload of the Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCMC. The terminal is the largest package of the first phase, with an investment of VND35.23 trillion ($1.49 billion). It is expected to be completed in 33 months.

A railway link

To ensure optimum utilization of the Long Thanh airport, Dong Nai is pushing various road projects including the Ben Luc-Long Thanh Expressway, a part of Ho Chi Minh City Ring Road 3; the Phan Thiet-Dau Giay Expressway linking Dong Nai with the south-central province of Binh Thuan; and the Bien Hoa-Vung Tau Expressway connecting Dong Nai with the southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau.

Dong Nai also aims to build an urban railway project called Thu Thiem-Long Thanh to transport people between the airport and HCMC.

In the national railway development plan for 2021-2030, approved by the Prime Minister, the 38-kilometer Thu Thiem-Long Thanh railway is deemed a major project with national priority, alongside the Thu Thiem station in HCMC’s district 2 and the Long Thanh airport. Thu Thiem station will eventually become part of the national high-speed railway project.

Initially, the railway project was supposed to follow a public-private partnership (PPP) format. However, the HCMC Department of Transport proposed last week that the project be allowed to use public investment if the PPP format proved difficult to realize.