Barun Roy: A nation on the go

ASIA FILE

The My Thuan Bridge across the Mekong is one of many symbols of a nation that refuses to slow down.

The pace had been quickening all along, but few paid any attention. Now it's becoming all too evident to ignore. Vietnam is going places and the going is getting speedier. It's clear that the country, as it transits from bicycles to motorbikes to cars, from boat ferries to cable-stayed bridges, and from Ho Chi Minh Trail to Ho Chi Minh Highway, has drawn its road map to the future with one unwavering objective: a pervasive development of basic physical infrastructure "" roads, bridges, ports, power stations "" without which no economy can move forward and be sustained in the long run.

Seven years ago, the spectacular cable-stayed My Thuan Bridge across the Mekong was the most visible symbol of a nation on the go. Today, there are many other symbols to signify a nation that refuses to slow down. Later this year, work begins on a subway in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) which is expected to grow into a six-route network by 2020. By mid-2008, a six-lane road tunnel will have been laid under the Saigon River to connect downtown HCMC with a brand new urban centre called Saigon South. Soon afterwards, a 2-km cable-stayed bridge will follow to complete an outer beltway opening yet another route to the delta.

Next March, a 1,500-Mw power plant will begin operation at Ca Mau, Vietnam's southernmost province, fed by the abundant natural gas resources of its southern continental shelf. Skoda Praha has reached an initial agreement to build a 3,000-Mw complex (six units of 500 Mw each). Three nuclear power plants are to be built by 2025 to produce 8,000 Mw of additional electricity, at a likely cost of $16 billion. The first one could come as early as 2015.

By 2010, the 130-year-old Port of Saigon will have been fully moved out of HCMC in a major step to decongest the booming metropolis and half a dozen new container ports will be up and running elsewhere in the southern provinces to take its place. In the north, a major expansion will enable the port of Quang Ninh to handle 100,000 DWT vessels. A big new seaport is coming up at Dung Quat in Central Vietnam.

Inevitably, attention is turning also to roads and railways. Both are outmoded and need a quick fix, and Hanoi has decided to fix it with a bang. So, as negotiations are going on with Japan on a 1,630-km $33-billion bullet railway between Hanoi and HCMC and new tracks are being laid to create other high-speed railway corridors, plans have been announced to build over 6,000 km of expressways by 2025 at an estimated cost of $22.8 billion.

Vietnam currently has about 222,179 km of roads of all kinds, but only 20 per cent of them are in the national/provincial category and paved. Rural roads, about 100,000 km of them, are good only for dry-season traffic. Smaller rivers and canals are crossed by what are known as "monkey bridges." What the government is trying to do now is take a quantum leap and tell the world it has no intention to tolerate a patch-up, business-as-usual economy.

Expressways are a new concept for Vietnam and the body that coordinates their growth, Vietnam Expressway Corporation, was set up only in October 2004. Two short sections totalling 60 km and the 62-km HCMC-Trung Luong corridor now under construction are the only expressways in the country at the moment. When the proposed new expressways are built "" 13 projects were announced recently "" all the country's major growth centres would be accessible by four- to six-lane expressways at speeds of up to 120 km per hour.

There will be two north-south expressways (over 1,800 km each), one aligning with Highway 1 along the east coast and the other running parallel to the Ho Chi Minh Highway, now in the final stages of construction, to the west. In addition, six radial corridors, totalling about 1,100 km, are planned for the northern part of the country to link Hanoi with the port city of Haiphong on the one hand and the Chinese highway system on the other. In the central part of the country, four routes totalling 340 km are to open up the remote highland areas. To the south, eight corridors totalling 1,100 km are slated to consolidate HCMC's links with the Mekong Delta and the rest of the country. The entire system is being so designed as to integrate Vietnam with its neighbours, including China.

BOT and PPP will be the main funding models, and, interestingly, state-owned banks, like Vietcombank and Vietnam Development Bank, are setting up joint stock companies to invest specifically in expressways. They are willing to take the risks as they think the rewards are going to be big.