According to the plan of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, Metro Line 2 project will be issued an order to start construction at the end of 2025, but up to now, a series of important tasks are behind schedule.
In particular, the adjustment of the volume and package prices of some consulting contracts in the project was expected to be completed on March 22, 2025, but by May 30, 2025, it was still not completed - 69 days late, many other packages were 61 days late compared to the plan.
According to the Ho Chi Minh City Urban Railway Management Board (MAUR), with the current situation, the risk of progress failure is very clear.
Metro Line 2 was approved in 2010 with an initial total investment of VND26,000 billion. By 2019, the project's capital had been adjusted to increase to nearly VND47,900 billion.
The project has not started construction for 15 years.
Previously, the plan to exploit Metro Line 2 was set for 2026. However, due to many problems related to site clearance and investment procedures, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has adjusted the completion time to 2030.
Ho Chi Minh City residents hope that, waiting for Metro Line 2 to be completed and put into operation, it will connect the city center with the Northwest, contributing to reducing traffic pressure on main roads such as Cach Mang Thang Tam, Truong Chinh, Cong Hoa.
Missed the 2025 deadline, but whether it can be completed by 2030 or not is uncertain.
If construction starts at the end of 2025, there are 5 years left to build this metro line.
However, if the construction has not started this year and the time for postponement is not known, it will be difficult to keep the commitment as given.
From the delay in starting the construction of metro line 2, it can be seen that the goal of completing 7 355km metro lines in 2035 of Ho Chi Minh City has become even more difficult.
Just calm down, Metro No. 1 project (Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien) is nearly 20km long, completed after 17 years since its approval, the construction time takes 12 years.
The metro project No. 2, which has been 15 years since its approval, has not yet started construction. So, the remaining routes will be built and completed in the next 10 years, which is not easy.
MAUR said that from Metro Line 1, the urban railway industry of Ho Chi Minh City has drawn 5 big lessons for the next routes: One is to prepare clean land, two is to have full legal documents, three is to have a standard contract, four is to be autonomous, the third is to prepare human resources to operate the project.
Having learned 5 lessons, I have learned from the experience of developing urban railways in China. MAUR needs to apply lessons to reality in a practical and effective way in order to hope to complete metro projects as declared.
