VietNamNet Bridge – Seven foreign contractors want to make feasibility study reports on the first phase of the Long Thanh international aviation terminal project in southern Dong Nai Province.

They included three US companies, two Japanese firms and two European businesses.

Officials at the Airports Corporation of Viet Nam (ACV) made the announcement during a working session with Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Nhat on Tuesday, without providing further details about the contractors.

The ACV said the contractors' documents would be examined this month and early next month, and the company would give them bid invitations before the Lunar New Year that falls in early February.

Nhat said the transport ministry would continue to study other issues related to projects and consult policymakers and the Government to address any obstacles.

He added that facilities needed to connect the terminal with the future Long Thanh are important, assigning the ACV to take key responsibility for investing in both the terminal and the related infrastructure.

A representative of Dong Nai Province said site clearance and resettlement affairs were expected to be carried out in 2018 at the earliest, as the implementation of any feasibility study would not begin until 2017.

The representative noted that clearing land areas amounting to 5,000ha would take significant time, so the study phases need to be hastened in order to assure the progress of the projects.

In a draft plan presented to the transport ministry last September, the ACV said capital for building the terminal will come from the State budget, official development assistance and preferential loans.

The construction will also consume money from share sales of the ACV, and funding from businesses entering the public-private partnership.

Official plans said the Long Thanh terminal will have a throughput capacity of 100 million passengers and 5 million tonnes of freight per year when it is fully completed by 2050.

The first phase, expected to be completed in 2025, will allow the terminal to handle 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tonnes of goods per year. It will include the construction of a runway and supporting infrastructure.

Investments in the project are estimated to total about VND336.63 trillion (US$14.96 billion), with the first phase costing about VND114.45 trillion ($5.09 billion).

The National Assembly approved the project last June, expecting it to help ease pressure on HCM City's congested Tan Son Nhat International Airport, which is going to reach its maximum annual capacity of 25 million passengers within the next two years.

The ACV, which has VND22.43 trillion ($996.89 million) in charter capital and was designated by the Government as the investor of the project, launched an initial public offering on the HCM Stock Exchange on December 10.

The company plans to offer strategic investors a stake of 20 per cent, while the State retains a capital ratio of 75 per cent in its equity, and 5 per cent is offered to its employees and normal investors.

VNS