Minister wants issues of proposed Long Thanh airport clarified
Minister of Planning and Investment Bui Quang Vinh has requested that five issues of the proposed Long Thanh airport in Dong Nai Province be clarified before the project can be submitted to the National Assembly for approval.The airport has been proposed to be built in Dong Nai’s Long Thanh District to help meet the increasing demand for travel by air via Ho Chi Minh City, where the Tan Son Nhat airport has become overloaded with passengers.
Regarding the project, Minister Vinh, the chairman of the State Verification Council for the Long Thanh International Airport Project, said there are five major issues that need to be clarified.
The necessity of the project is the first issue, in which the competitive edge and the ability to attract passengers and cargo of the future airport must be proven, and the limitation as well as challenges of the project must be also specified, the minister said.
Secondly, it is necessary to clarify the grounds based on which the future airport is designed to be built on an area of 5,000 hectares and is targeted to receive 100 million passengers per year.
At the same time, the plan for connecting operations between Tan Son Nhat and Long Thanh airports in the future must be made concretely for each period of time to meet the increasing demand for air transportation and ensure the best use of the existing facilities at Tan Son Nhat airport to avoid wasting resources.
Regarding total investment and investment efficiency, the minister has requested details regarding the cost of construction and equipment for each work item.
The official has also demanded that the feasibility of the capital mobilization be analyzed carefully.
The last issue is the feasibility of the connection of the traffic system with the proposed airport. An effective connection is very important to the efficiency and the competitiveness of the project, Minister Vinh said.
The minister said the above council will convene in a second meeting this year to continue considering the project.
Based on the outcome of the coming meeting, the council will make a report about the project to the Government, which will then submit the project investment policy to the National Assembly.
According to the Airport Corporation of Vietnam, the total investment in the Long Thanh airport project is about US$7.817 billion, including $730 million on land recovery from about 1,500 households.
Controversialproject
There have been some opinions that object to the building of Long Thanh airport, saying that the project is costly and unnecessary.
Instead of investing $7.8 billion in the new project on 5,000 ha, only $1 billion is needed to upgrade Tan Son Nhat to meet the increasing demand for air travel, Le Trong Sanh, former head of the management department at Tan Son Nhat Airport, and Mai Trong Tuan, a former pilot of Flight Crew Division 919, believe.
However, the Ministry of Transport maintained that the new airport project is the best option to solve potential overload at Tan Son Nhat in the near future.
Last month, in a written reply to questions from a number of National Assembly deputies about the proposed airport, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said, “The Tan Son Nhat airport has a maximum capacity of 25 million passengers per year, and there is no land fund for expansion of the airport while the demand for air travel in increasing rapidly. Therefore, an expansion to raise its capacity to 30-40 million passengers per year is unfeasible and very costly.”
Meanwhile, upon completion, the Long Thanh airport will meet the increasing demand for travel via HCMC. The new airport will help reduce passenger overload at Tan Son Nhat airport, the government leader said.
He added that this proposed airport has been listed in the national plan for airport development. After receiving a report from the State Verification Council, the government will refer the project to the National Assembly for approval.
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