Vietnam’s High-Speed Railway is Back on the Agenda – The Diplomat

Vietnam’s authorities has taken step one towards the development of a long-envisioned high-speed rail alongside the nation’s backbone, on the reported price of $58.7 billion. In line with a Reuters report that cited a authorities assertion launched yesterday, the nation’s Ministry of Transport will subsequent month submit a proposal to construct the 1,545-kilometer railway to the Politburo, the highest decision-making physique of the ruling Vietnamese Communist Get together (VCP).

The 1,545-kilometer rail line would join the southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh Metropolis to the capital Hanoi within the north, supplementing the longer 1,729-kilometre railway that dates again to the period of French rule. As VnExpress reported final month, this new rail line can be used to move passengers, whereas the prevailing railway routes can be used solely for freight.

The ministry’s plan envisions the primary two sections of the railway, which might have a mixed size of 665 kilometers and require an funding of $24.72 billion, being open to visitors by 2032. Your complete undertaking is slated to be accomplished by 2045-2050. The Ministry beforehand stated it hopes to start building on the undertaking by 2028.

In concept, railway upgrades are a logical transfer for Vietnam. The nation’s slim, attenuated geography is ideally suited to rail infrastructure, and bettering the velocity and effectivity of the present “reunification specific” linking Ho Chi Minh Metropolis and Hanoi, and its numerous extensions and spur traces, would appear to be a no brainer.

Because of this, a north-south high-speed rail has been on the agenda since at the least 2006, when Japan and Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding on the railway’s improvement. (Tokyo continues to be Vietnam’s associate of selection, given the nation’s allergy to large-scale Chinese language infrastructure investments, and the persistent native sensitivities in regards to the presence of Chinese language employees in Vietnam.)

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The principle query is whether or not the large price will be justified. In contrast to its fraternal rival, the Chinese language Communist Get together, which has constructed tens of hundreds of kilometers of high-speed rail because the flip of the century, the VCP doesn’t have the technological know-how, industrial overcapacity, and surplus capital which have made breakneck high-speed rail improvement economically possible for Beijing.

Certainly, Vietnam’s bullet practice plans have persistently foundered on the monetary rocks. In 2010, Vietnam’s Nationwide Meeting rejected the high-speed rail proposal as economically unsustainable, arguing that few Vietnamese would have the ability to afford extreme fares.

“This undertaking is simply too dangerous and too luxurious for Vietnam the place we now have many different issues to do with agriculture, schooling, electrical energy, and different transport tasks,” the Vietnamese economist Pham Chi Lan informed The Related Press, arguing that the undertaking wouldn’t serve the 70 p.c of Vietnamese who reside in rural areas.

The query is whether or not the financial and demographic logic has shifted since then. The undertaking’s then price ticket of $56 billion amounted to just about half of the nation’s gross home product (GDP) in 2009. However the nation’s financial system has greater than doubled from $106 billion to $271 billion as of 2020, making the undertaking marginally extra possible.

Even when the economics will be made to work, it could be near a miracle if the undertaking started building in line with the ministry’s timetable, not to mention completed on time. City metro programs in Ho Chi Minh Metropolis and Hanoi have each seen persistent delays, dragging on for practically a decade, and there’s no motive to assume {that a} extra complicated high-speed rail undertaking can be any totally different. That is particularly so on condition that land reclamation for the brand new line looms as a problem of appreciable complexity and political sensitivity, even for a one-party state like Vietnam.

Vietnam will in the future get its bullet practice – however it can most probably be a number of many years earlier than the primary passengers are welcomed aboard the brand new Reunification Categorical.