A conductor checks tickets before allowing passengers to board the train. Consulting firms for the North-South express railway project will be chosen through an international tender. Photo: Le Anh/ SGT

The tender for a package worth VND41.2 billion (US$1.8 million), which will be sourced from the State budget, to assess the prefeasibility report for the project will be held in the last quarter of this year. The package will be conducted for three months, the local media reported.

The consulting firm will verify eight aspects, including the necessity to invest in the project, the impact of the execution of the project under the public private partnership model, the preliminary selection of technologies used in the project and the total investment estimation and solutions to raise capital.

In the middle of last year, the Government established the State Appraisal Council to assess the prefeasibility report of the North-South high-speed railway project and assigned Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung to lead the council.

Earlier, the Ministry of Transport had sent the Government a prefeasibility study for the North-South high-speed railway project. Accordingly, the railway would be nearly 1,600 kilometers long, connecting Hanoi and HCMC, and allow a maximum speed of 350 kilometers an hour. The railway would be used for passenger transport only.

Rail travel between Hanoi and HCMC will take five hours and 20 minutes, excluding stopovers at certain stations, and six hours and 55 minutes if stopovers at all stations are included. The project requires an estimated investment of US$58.7 billion.

The Ministry of Transport has proposed that the Hanoi-Vinh and Nha Trang-HCMC sections would be developed in the first phase from 2027 to 2030. In the second phase from 2032 to 2050, the Vinh-Nha Trang section would be completed, of which the Vinh-Danang section would be put into service in 2040 and the Danang-Nha Trang one in 2050. SGT

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Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc asked the Ministry of Transport to propose a feasible plan for the North-South high-speed railway, considering this the backbone of the national strategy on railway development by 2050.

The financial issues clouding ambitious North-South railway

The North-South high-speed railway line is a large-scale project with a total investment of around $58.7 billion which could facilitate not only cargo transport at an operational speed of up to 200km/h but also reduce travel time