Vietnam airport operator ACV to study Long Thanh airport’s phase 2 implementation

Vietnam’s Transport Ministry has proposed that the Prime Minister assign Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) the task of studying second-phase implementation of the Long Thanh International Airport.

The second phase of building the nation’s largest airport is estimated to cost VND48 trillion ($1.9 billion) and carried out in the 2028-2032 period.

ACV is the investor of the first phase of the mega airport, about 30 kilometers from Ho Chi Minh City, which hosts the overloaded Tan Son Nhat International Airport – the current biggest airport in the country.

ACV is managed by the Commission for the Management of State Capital at Enterprises.

The ministry’s proposal comes after Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh asked it to coordinate efforts with relevant agencies towards ensuring that the second phase is rolled out soon after the first phase is finished.

The airport spans an area of some 5,000 hectares in Long Thanh district, Dong Nai province, a manufacturing hub in southern Vietnan. It has a designed capacity of 100 million passengers and five million tons of cargo per year once all phases are completed.

After the first phase, slated for competition in 2026, the airport will cater to 25 million passengers and handle 1.2 million tons of cargo per year.

After several delays, a consortium of IC ISTAS, under Turkey’s IC Holding, and Vietnamese companies – Ricons, Newtecons, SOL E&C, Vinaconex, ATAD, Phuc Hung Holdings, Hawee, and Hancorp – won last August a VND35 trillion ($1.38 billion) bid to build the first phase.

Some 4,000 engineers and workers are working around the clock on the site at present.

In the second phase, a second runway and a new terminal will be built to double the annual passenger capacity to 50 million.

All the remaining items will be constructed in the third phase to make it the biggest airport in the country and a regional transit hub.

The overall cost is estimated at $16.06 billion, with $5.45 billion earmarked for the first phase.

In a related development, three state-owned banks – Vietcombank, VietinBank, and BIDV – signed last Saturday an agreement to provide a syndicated loan worth $1.8 billion for component project 3 of the airport.