Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Dong, former Deputy Minister of Transport, expert of the Steering Committee for the development and implementation of the high-speed railway investment policy project, said that it can be seen that people are increasingly in agreement with the North-South high-speed railway project.
“The investment responsibility for the development of high-speed railways in particular and transport infrastructure in general belongs to the State. Therefore, public investment will be the main investment in the development of high-speed railways. Regarding capital recovery, it is not possible to recover capital from the project alone, but it is possible to recover capital from the spread of socio-economic development, increasing the competitiveness of Vietnamese goods. All countries in the world are the same,” former Deputy Minister Nguyen Ngoc Dong emphasized.
Mr. Nguyen Van Phuc, former Vice Chairman of the Economic Committee of the 14th National Assembly, said that we must determine that the most important thing about investing in high-speed railway projects is the spillover effect on socio-economic development, not only the 20 localities where the route runs through but also other localities when connecting traffic develops.
For example, Ha Tinh province has the Vung Ang Economic Zone. Although it is a key economic zone, it is currently very difficult for an expert/investor to come. They have to fly to Vinh or Quang Binh before being able to go by car. But when the high-speed railway is built, the Vung Ang Economic Zone will truly be a national key economic zone.
According to the report of the Ministry of Transport, the high-speed railway project will contribute to strengthening regional connectivity, growth poles, creating spillover momentum, opening up new economic development space, restructuring urban areas, population distribution, economic restructuring; and increasing the competitiveness of the economy.
The North-South economic corridor plays the most important role in the country, connecting 3/6 socio-economic regions, 20 provinces/cities, 2 special urban areas, 17 type I urban areas with a population of 500,000 people, about 54% of the country's urban population, 67% of coastal economic zones, about 63% of economic zones, 72% of type I-II large seaports, contributing over 51% of the country's GDP.
The national master plan has identified the development of the North-South economic corridor as a driving force to connect the East-West economic corridors and growth poles, creating a spillover force to promote rapid, effective and sustainable socio-economic development across the country.
With the advantage of large-volume, fast, reliable and convenient transportation, the high-speed railway on the North-South axis will "shorten" the distance between localities and regions, contributing to reducing the pressure of population concentration and infrastructure overload in large cities that are causing many consequences, especially in the capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City; restructuring and redistributing urban areas and population, opening up economic development space for localities along the corridor.
The Ministry of Transport cited an example from China, after the Beijing-Shanghai route was put into operation in 2012, the GRDP of localities along the route doubled after 10 years, creating additional resources from land funds.
According to research on China's high-speed rail development, high-speed rail development contributes to an increase of about 30% in the land value of the surrounding area, and this value increases the closer to the railway station.
In addition, high-speed rail has promoted the development of services and tourism. In China, in 2010, 1.4 million visitors visited the Confucius Temple, and after the high-speed rail was installed in 2013, it welcomed 3.5 million visitors. In Spain, high-speed rail plays an important role in serving about 87 million tourists/year.
