Clear all hurdles to operation of Hanoi's first metro line: PM Phuc

The Ministry of Transport and the Hanoi city government must thoroughly address all pending issues related to the Cat Linh – Ha Dong metro line project, the first of its kind in Hanoi, said Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at a recent meeting with the city's authorities.

The PM suggested that the Ministry of Transport needs to discuss with the Chinese partners to solve all remaining issues, especially the safety evaluation, by June 2020.

Date for official run of Hanoi’s first metro line remains unknown. Photo: Pham Hung

For his part, Minister of Transport Nguyen Van The affirmed that his ministry had sit down with Hanoi’s leaders to discuss this project several times. The two sides showed determination to put the Cat Linh - Ha Dong railway project into commercial operation by September 2020.

However, in order to achieve the goal, the Ministry of Transport has put forward three proposals which need to be approved by the government.

The first one is to allow Chinese experts to enter Vietnam as soon as possible to complete the 13th report – the final one on the project’s safety evaluation. Without the experts, the work could not be done, said the minister.

He added that if the experts arrive in Vietnam in April 2020, the Cat Linh – Ha Dong railway project will be put into operation in September 2020.

The second proposal is to soon hand over the project to the Hanoi government, even temporarily. The minister explained that his ministry will parallel conduct the safety assessment for the project and then transfer to the municipal authority under certain conditions.

The final proposal is that Hanoi would repay the principal of the loans borrowed for the project.

"According to the contract, the Ministry of Transport is responsible for executing the project and Hanoi will pay for it," the transport minister said.

He further explained that the investor of the railway project is the Ministry of Transport but Hanoi is the beneficiary. Therefore, when the it is completed, the municipal authority will have to repay the principal.

Work on the Cat Linh-Ha Dong railway line, which covers around 13 km, running between Cat Linh street in Dong Da district in Hanoi downtown and Yen Nghia bus station in Ha Dong district, began in October 2011 and was originally planned for completion in 2013.

Project costs have more than doubled from the original VND8.8 trillion (US$553 million) to VND18 trillion (US$868 million), according to state auditors, applying the exchange rate at their respective timings.