The investment in Long Thanh Airport got the National Assembly’s approval in June 2015. Since then, the project, capitalized at VND336 trillion ($16.06 billion), has been under procedure implementation and site clearance.

The investment capital is VND114.45 trillion, or $5.45 billion, in the first phase of the project.

The $16.06 billion is the investment capital calculated on the 2014 exchange rate, which as VND21,370-21,450 per dollar. Meanwhile, the dollar price quoted by commercial banks on October 9 was VND23,100 (buying price) – VND23,280 (selling price).

The report showed that as of June 2019, consultants had completed the feasibility study. On July 12, 2019, the Ministry of Transport submitted the feasibility study report to the Prime Minister and the State Appraisal Council with investment capital of $4.789 billion.

On October 7, 2019, the government submitted a statement to the National Assembly on the major points of the feasibility study report on the first phase of Long Thanh Airport project.

On November 26, 2019, the National Assembly issued Resolution No 95 approving the feasibility study, assigning the government to select investors in accordance with the laws, while ensuring national defence and security.

Implementing the National Assembly’s resolution, the government released Resolution No 07 dated February 3, 2020 on the feasibility study of the Long Thanh Airport project (the first phase) and assigned the appraisal council to appraise the project.

After that, the State Appraisal Council requested verification consultants to examine the documents of the project. After the results of the verification were released, the council on May 27, 2020 held a plenary session to listen to the appraisal report and gave comments on the project.

Implementing the National Assembly’s resolution, the government released Resolution No 07 dated February 3, 2020 on the feasibility study of the Long Thanh Airport project (the first phase) and assigned the appraisal council to appraise the project.

On the basis of the appraisal report and comments, the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) completed a feasibility study report and submitted it to the State Appraisal Council.

On August 24, 2020, the State Appraisal Council collected opinions from the members of the council. The majority of the members of the council approved the draft appraisal report and the content of the project.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), the Standing Body of the Council, completed the appraisal report in Document No 6359 dated September 25, 2020 and the draft of the investment decision and submitted it to the Prime Minister.

The government’s report says that the implementation of the procedures for the project appraisal and approval has been going slowly.

Since this is a huge and important project, the international verification consultants completed the appraisal report later than expected. Besides, because of Covid-19, relevant units and individuals could not meet for discussion, but they had to work through online meetings.

“With the current progress, it is expected that the construction would begin in 2021 and compete in 2025 in accordance with the National Assembly’s Resolution 94,” the government’s report said.

Site clearance

Under the National Assembly’s Resolution 38 dated June 19, 2017, the land recovery, compensation for site clearance and resettlement in preparation for the development of Long Thanh Airport project have been implemented in a component project.

As such, the Long Thanh International Airport project has two component projects, including the Long Thanh Airport construction project implemented by the Ministry of Transprot, and the site clearance project implemented by the Dong Nai provincial People’s Committee.

The site clearance project has total investment capital of VND22.856 trillion. The provincial authorities have been given VND18.195 trillion to implement the project in 2018-2020.

However, only VND2.654 trillion, or 14.6 percent of the capital allocated, has been disbursed since 2018.

After the Prime Minister approved the the Long Thanh Airport master plan, the Dong Nai provincial People’s Committee released a legal document on prohibiting transfer or building of houses and infrastructure in the project area.

However, because of urgent needs in their lives, local households still transfer land, or divide assets to children, which leads to diffiuclties in the process of counting and determining land origin.

The transactions are conducted among people under verbal contracts, or written agreements between the two parties. It takes the Long Thanh district People’s Committee a lot of time to identify the owners of land.

However, the Dong Nai provincial authorities have committed to complete the procedures to hand over 1,810 hectares of land in the priority area to the investor in 2020 (the total land area of the Long Thanh project is over 5,000 hectares). 

Luong Bang

Land compensation to be paid this year for Long Thanh Airport: official

Chairman of the Dong Nai People’s Committee Cao Tien Dung speaks about the 1,800ha of land that will be made available for the construction of Long Thanh Airport in October

Dong Nai urged to hand over ‘clean land’ for Long Thanh Airport

Dong Nai plans to send officials to assist the Long Thanh District in speeding up site clearance, compensation and resettlement for households affected by the Long Thanh airport project  so that construction can begin next year.