On August 12, the National Assembly discussed in the hall on adjusting the investment policy of the Lao Cai - Hanoi - Hai Phong railway line investment project.
At the hall, many delegates raised issues related to increasing capital sources, fully calculating resources for the entire project life cycle. At the same time, there should be a structure to increase the localization rate and technology transfer.
Accordingly, the Lao Cai - Hanoi - Hai Phong railway line after adjustment, preliminary total investment increased from about 203,000 billion to 289,000 billion VND. Capital demand in the 2026 - 2030 period is about 224,600 billion VND, while the medium-term public investment plan currently only allocates about 148,500 billion VND.
Explaining and absorbing the opinions of National Assembly deputies, Member of the Party Central Committee, Minister of Construction Tran Hong Minh said that the Government has a report explaining and clarifying the reasons for adjusting the investment policy with objective and subjective reasons.
One of the objective reasons is that the implementation process has seen new requirements from the Party's policy on growth, restructuring and digital transformation, leading to changes in national planning and the railway system.
In addition, through domestic research consulting, investors and especially in the context of new-style urban railways being applied for the first time in Vietnam, leading to incomplete and incomplete research and assessment of related factors.
On the other hand, site clearance and input factors are also one of the reasons for increasing project costs; in which, costs related to some localities such as Hanoi and Hai Phong have increased significantly; the mechanism and policies serving site clearance alone have generated tens of trillions of VND.
In addition, the project is also affected by exchange rate adjustments, costs of purchasing vehicles, materials and some other factors.
The Minister of Construction affirmed that the reasons for the change in total investment have been analyzed and explained by the Government in the dossier submitted to the National Assembly.
Regarding some other contents that delegates are interested in, Minister Tran Hong Minh said that the Ministry will continue to receive, study and report and explain in the next working sessions.
