The Lao Cai - Hanoi - Hai Phong railway project is about 391km long in the main line and 28km in the branch line, passing through 6 provinces and cities, with a preliminary total investment of about 203,000 billion VND (equivalent to 8.37 billion USD).
According to records in mid-August, the section passing through Lao Cai is being dismantled by the province for site clearance bottlenecks.
The project is implemented in 2 phases. The section passing through Lao Cai is about 143.68km long, passing through 12 communes and wards with 9 stations.
The total land area expected to be recovered according to the plan of investing in single roads and site clearance according to the scale of double roads is about 828.1ha.
By mid-August, the entire 143.29km of the route had been measured with a total area of about 1,397ha; 1,414 households and organizations had been statistically and counted, and 577 households had been notified of land acquisition.
The Railway Project Management Board has handed over boundary markers for about 130.32km of line and 8/9 stations. The remaining part in Au Lau ward and Yen Bai station area was handed over on August 17.
To serve the project, Lao Cai plans to arrange 38 resettlement areas. To date, 28 areas have started construction, of which 3 areas have been completed, 3 areas have available land; the remaining 10 areas are preparing for investment.
The province requests communes, wards, and Project Management Boards to start construction of the remaining 10 zones in October 2026 and complete the 28 zones that have started construction in December 2026.
At Dong Pho Moi Industrial Park, 38/41 production facilities have been inventoried and plans have been developed. However, the development of compensation plans is still facing difficulties because many machines, equipment, and production lines do not have appropriate unit prices.
In addition, the route map and site clearance boundaries have changed many times, requiring adjustments in measurement and inventory. Changes in design also create a need for resettlement.
For Component Project 1, the province has cleared the site and handed over 7.46/7.9ha for construction.
The total capital plan for 2026 assigned to the project in Lao Cai is 2,132.9 billion VND. By the end of August 15, the province had disbursed 324.3 billion VND, reaching 15.2%.
According to Lao Cai Provincial Party Secretary Duong Quoc Huy, the Lao Cai - Hanoi - Hai Phong railway project is of great significance in expanding development space, increasing traffic connectivity, promoting trade and regional linkages.
Lao Cai Provincial Party Secretary also said that it is necessary to link the progress of site clearance with capital disbursement, urgently complete payment procedures for the completed volume and review the capital needs of each component project.
The goal is to thoroughly handle each part of the work, each area, creating a clean, continuous and synchronous ground, meeting the requirements of implementing the national key railway project.
On August 6, the National Assembly listened to the Submission on adjusting the investment policy of the Lao Cai - Hanoi - Hai Phong railway project.
Accordingly, the preliminary total investment of the project has been updated to 289,339 billion VND, an increase of 86,108 billion VND compared to the level approved by the National Assembly previously.
The increase mainly came from construction and equipment costs increasing by 51,210 billion VND and compensation, support, and resettlement costs increasing by 34,849 billion VND.
Project management costs, consulting and other costs increased by about 163 billion VND, while contingency costs decreased by 114 billion VND.
