Ring Road 3 construction to begin six months earlier

Ho Chi Minh City plans to begin construction of Ring Road 3 in June 2023, six months earlier than planned, a senior official says.

Tran Quang Lam, director of the city's Department of Transport, said that with the new timeline, the project should be completed by October 2025 and opened to traffic a year later.

"From October this year to the end of next year, 70% of cleared land would be handed over to the project and 100% achieved by March 2024," he said at a meeting held Saturday to discuss ring roads 3 and 4.

The phase one investment for Ring Road 3, about VND75,378 billion ($3.25 billion), will be sourced from the central and municipal state budget.

The National Assembly had on June 16 approved investment policies for HCMC’s Ring Road 3 and Hanoi’s Ring Road 4, considered two of the most significant traffic infrastructure projects in the country.

HCMC’s Ring Road 3 will run 76.34-kilometers long, connecting the southern economic hub with Dong Nai, Binh Duong and Long An provinces.

Localities that the road will run through had suggested direct appointment of contractors for two packages - consulting and relocating technical infrastructure - to accelerate the process.

Bui Thi Thu Thuy, deputy head of the Ministry of Planning and Investment's territorial and local economy department, however, noted that appointing contractors for a large scale project like Ring Road 3 had to be done after careful consideration. Direct appointment of contractors should only be done for simple, low value packages, she said.

Ring Road 3 is expected to ease the traffic overload in HCMC's gateway areas, make the city more competitive, and boost its connectivity with satellite urban areas. The project will also create an urban and industrial corridor that bolsters development of the southern key economic region as a whole.