Attending the meeting were Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha; Minister of Construction Tran Hong Minh; Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Nguyen Thi Hong; Minister of Justice Nguyen Hai Ninh; leaders of the Ministries of Finance, Science and Technology... Leaders and representatives of enterprises: Vietnam 3000 Co., Ltd. - Vietnam Investment and Development Group, Discovery Group Joint Stock Company, Vietnam Railway Transport Joint Stock Company, Truong Hai Group Joint Stock Company, Vinspeed Expressway Investment and Development Joint Stock Company.
The Government organizes consultations with businesses not only to directly listen to plans and solutions, but also to learn and evaluate the real capacity and goodwill of investors. Through consultation, it will also provide complete and accurate information to the public, helping the public clearly see which businesses are thinking, seriously prepared, capable of implementation and which are statements that lack basis for reality. This is a necessary step to have full information before deciding on the most feasible and effective investment method.
Speaking at the opening of the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh said that the Politburo had concluded that the National Assembly had a resolution to implement the North-South high-speed railway project. The project has 3 investment methods, which are public investment, public-private partnership (PPP) and private investment. Of these 3 forms of investment, the requirement is to choose the most optimal form of investment, most beneficial to the country.
According to the report of the Ministry of Construction, although the number of documents submitted by enterprises is large, through inspection and review, many enterprises have unclear investment ideas, lack capacity in both investment and finance, and many enterprise records even lack information, contact addresses...
Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh emphasized the viewpoint of considering being impartial, objective, transparent, and public, "there is nothing wrong with being impolite" and exchanged very frankly and openly. At the same time, we welcome and highly appreciate the goodwill of businesses that want to contribute to the development of the country in the new era.
"This is a meeting with a very serious and open-minded working spirit; the purpose is for leaders of the Government, ministries and functional branches of Vietnam to listen to opinions, plans, ideas and specific solutions, proposals and aspirations of businesses towards the Vietnamese Government and the commitments of businesses when participating in the project, discuss and clarify the issues and contents that all parties are interested in, thereby making the right decision, putting national interests above all, first of all and above all, to ensure a high-speed railway line as desired, according to the set goals and requirements, meeting the great expectations of the people and society", Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh emphasized.
At the meeting, representatives of enterprises presented ideas, investment plans for the project, financial and technology options, and investment forms when participating in the project.
Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha, and leaders of ministries and branches directly answered and exchanged questions and issues that investors were interested in, and exchanged specific opinions with investors on ideas, investment forms, technology options, especially issues of implementation capacity, financial potential, capital mobilization capacity of enterprises when participating in projects, predictable risks and risk management...
A representative of Vietnam 3000 Company Limited - Vietnam Investment and Development Group said that this is a large project, requiring coordination between the Government and investors, especially in the issue of capital mobilization and wished to choose the form of PPP cooperation from the perspective of " collaborating, supporting together" because there are many potential risks. The role of this enterprise here is to mobilize and bring capital for the project and call for and mobilize good experts in this field to implement the project.
As stated above, Vietnam 3000 Company Limited wishes to cooperate in investing in the project in the form of partnership-investment, but when asked about the company's financial capacity and if cooperating in the form of partnership-investment, what is the capital ratio of the enterprise contributed; capacity and legal bases, basis for the enterprise to be able to mobilize capital... this business representative could not answer, some answers were not correct according to the content of the question.
The Ministry of Construction commented that the business's records do not have clear documents proving financial capacity, and the proposals for progress are also very vague. The State Bank recommends that businesses specifically publicize the financial resources of the "ecosystem" that businesses mentioned, instead of the general promises of " bringing 100% of capital to Vietnam".
After raising investment ideas, financial and technological solutions for the project, Mr. Nguyen Nam Thieu, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Discovery Group Joint Stock Company affirmed that this is a large and very difficult project, but brings great value to society and expressed his desire to cooperate in investing in the project according to the capital recovery business plan. However, when asked about the scale of personnel, investment capital of Discovery Group and project implementation capacity, Mr. Nguyen Nam Thieu said that the Group currently has about 70 employees and a total capital of about VND 2,000 3,000 billion in Vietnam, the capital is only about 0.2% of the total investment of the project (67 billion USD).
The representative of Vietnam Railway Transport Joint Stock Company hopes to participate in the project mainly focusing on the infrastructure sector of signal information equipment and power systems for the high-speed railway project.
Affirming this is a great opportunity for businesses, representative of Truong Hai Group Joint Stock Company, General Director Nguyen Hoang Tue said that the Group has held many meetings related to the policy of participating in investing in this important project; regularly updated documents and records, and sent reports to the authorities with all wishes and goodwill to participate in the project in the form of investment and business (according to the Investment Law).
Regarding capital mobilization, investors will be responsible for 20% of investment capital, 80% of mobilized and borrowed; in addition to equity capital and financial resources, Truong Hai Group will establish companies to mobilize investment capital from domestic and international enterprises and corporations to implement the project. Based on careful calculation of resources and capacity, the project implementation period is expected to start from Hanoi to Vinh and start from Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang, which is 5 years; the implementation period from Nha Trang to Vinh is 7 years. Thus, the total construction and completion time of the entire route is 7 years.
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Tue affirmed strong commitments to ensure personnel work, progress, project quality, and disbursement on schedule; ensure items that must be transferred to state management on schedule; ensure quality and technology issues; increase the localization rate in project implementation; produce train cars/ locomotives in Vietnam (expected in 2039); hope that the Government will soon issue policy mechanisms and standards for the project for businesses to research and participate in implementation.
Mr. Nguyen Viet Quang, Vice Chairman and General Director of Vingroup Corporation - investor of Vinspeed Expressway Investment and Development Joint Stock Company, wishes to invest in the project in the form of business investment with a total project investment expected to be over 61 billion USD (excluding site clearance costs) with a project construction period of 5 years from the date the state allocates clean land to the project.
Proposing to borrow 80% of the project investment capital and refund it within 30 years, Vinspeed affirms its commitments: Strictly comply with legal regulations, especially procedures and regulations in loans; do not sell bids, do not transfer projects; ensure investment in technology and modern equipment, strengthen cooperation with partners in increasing the localization rate of the railway industry; arrange and train human resources to implement the project as well as operate when the project comes into operation; ensure conditions, be ready to serve security and defense goals; be ready to accept some business risks and especially commit not to generate capital, increase capital, ...
At the same time, it is committed to investing in and organizing research and development of high-speed railway technology to not only master technology transferred from foreign partners but also create new technological values for Vietnam.
Mr. Nguyen Viet Quang said that if VinSpeed invests directly, the state and society will benefit from the following 5 main points: First, the state only needs to lend 80% instead of paying 100% of the total investment. Second, the state reclaims 80% of lending capital after 30 years instead of waiting for capital recovery after 140 years, or even longer. Third, the system will be put into operation after 5 years instead of after 10 years. This will create momentum for the country's economy to develop, transportation will be convenient, people's travel costs will decrease, and people's lives will improve. Fourth, the state does not worry about capital increase and prolonged progress. Fifth, the state has the high-speed railway industry without having to invest.
Emphasizing that this is a large-scale project, extremely important for the economy, with high technology content, Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh stated that exchanging and learning information with businesses and investors is very necessary. Through that, we know the goodwill of businesses, know which businesses have goodwill, which businesses are serious, and which businesses are not serious.
"Today's meeting, we invited 6 businesses to register to work, but only 5 businesses were present, and 1 business registered to work, Mekolor and Great Investors Association (USA) but did not come, we contacted but could not find an address, this is also the unit that famously announced the mobilization of 100 billion USD for the project but the address provided could not be contacted. Through this, we have more information from businesses in different aspects about serious or unserious working spirit. There are enterprises at this meeting that work with a very serious spirit, the reports are prepared very carefully and elaborately, but there are also enterprises that report poorly, the ideas are unclear; there are enterprises with a workforce of only 70 people, the total capital is about 2,000 3,000 billion VND, which cannot meet the requirements of the project", said Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh.
Emphasizing that this is not a meeting to select and decide on investors, the Permanent Deputy Prime Minister stated that, based on existing documents and information provided by businesses, the Ministry of Construction should preside over and coordinate with the Ministry of Finance, the State Bank of Vietnam and relevant agencies to urgently complete the report on investment methods and accompanying policies to submit to the Government for consideration and comments, and at the same time request ministries and branches to actively contribute their opinions to the report. This will be an important basis for the Government to discuss and evaluate before reporting to competent authorities for consideration and decision.
