A nearly 10,000 billion VND flood control project in Ho Chi Minh City is at risk of being delayed again

Accelerated construction site

After restarting at the beginning of 2026, key items of the tidal flood control project phase 1 are being accelerated.

At Muong Chuoi culvert - the largest tide-preventing culvert in 6 main culverts - the construction volume reached about 94%. Items such as piers, valve towers, boat shelters, valve beams and main valve gates have been completed; the contractor is completing embankments, anchorage wharves, reinforcing riverbeds, operating roads and boat shelter gate complexes.

The remaining five tide control culverts are also approaching the finish line. Among them, Ben Nghe culvert reached about 99% of the volume, Tan Thuan culvert reached 95%, Phu Xuan culvert reached 92%, Phu Dinh culvert reached about 90% and Cay Kho culvert reached nearly 89%. Ho Chi Minh City currently sets a target to complete and put the project into operation in 2026. However, legal obstacles are becoming the biggest barrier to the project progress.

Risk of further missed deadlines due to slow procedures

According to Trung Nam Construction Investment Joint Stock Company (Trungnam Group) - the project investor, although the project has been allowed to restart, so far the enterprise has not been able to access refinancing loans as well as additional loans from the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV). The completion of the project depends on credit capital from BIDV, and cannot only be based on the financial capacity of the investor.

Currently, BIDV requires completing a number of legal conditions before considering continuing to disburse capital for the project. In which, the most important requirement is that the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee needs to re-sign the Appendix of the Construction - Transfer (BT) contract to update the adjusted total investment level according to the State Audit's opinion of more than 13,701 billion VND (an increase of more than 3,700 billion VND compared to the initial total investment level). At the same time, the contract appendix must also supplement the land areas expected to be used for payment to investors, creating a basis for BIDV to assess revenue sources, thereby proposing a plan to disburse the remaining capital.

Meanwhile, the refinancing of about 6,700 billion VND previously managed by BIDV has been recovered by the State Bank, while BIDV has not recovered the corresponding capital from the project. This has caused the bank to apply a penalty interest rate of 5.5%/year for the project's loan. To date, the incurred loan interest expense has reached about 2,500 billion VND.

To remove difficulties, Trungnam Group proposed that the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee soon approve the plan to replace the two payment land plots at 299 Dao Tri (Phu Thuan ward) and the 4.2ha land plot in Phuoc Long ward with two other land plots at 257 Tran Hung Dao (Cau Ong Lanh ward) and 79B Ly Thuong Kiet (Tan Hoa ward), ensuring the principle of price equality as proposed by the State Audit Office. This is the basis for the enterprise to complete legal documents with BIDV. The enterprise also proposed that the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee soon sign a new BT contract appendix to complete legal documents to serve capital mobilization.

According to investors, if legal procedures continue to be prolonged, the project will be difficult to complete on schedule in 2026. The completion time of the project may have to be delayed corresponding to the slow processing time of the dossier. In case the project has to be temporarily suspended once again, the restart time may take an additional 4 - 6 months, leading to continued increase in loan interest costs.