On January 1, 2024, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and leaders of ministries, sectors and localities issued the order to start construction of the Dong Dang - Tra Linh expressway. This event was considered by many local people as the "highway dream" has come true.
The Dong Dang - Tra Linh Expressway project has a total length of 121km, divided into two investment phases. In phase 1, the Dong Dang - Tra Linh Expressway is invested with a length of more than 93km, starting at the Tan Thanh Border Gate intersection, Van Lang district (Lang Son), and ending at the National Highway 3 intersection in Chi Thao commune, Quang Hoa district (Cao Bang). The highlight of the project is the two tunnels through the mountains of Dong Khe and That Khe.
Phase 1 of the project has a total investment of 14,167 billion VND, invested by the consortium of Deo Ca Group Joint Stock Company - ICV Vietnam Investment and Construction Joint Stock Company - Deo Ca Transport Infrastructure Investment Joint Stock Company - Construction Joint Stock Company 568. Phase 1 is expected to be opened to traffic in 2025 and completed in 2026.
Entering 2025, the people of this border province will receive more good news. Accordingly, on the morning of February 2, the head of the Government visited and inspected the progress of the implementation of phase 1 of the Dong Dang - Tra Linh expressway project, and agreed to immediately invest in phase 2 of this expressway up to Tra Linh, with 4 complete lanes to ensure traffic safety and help save costs; at the same time, agreed on the policy of investing in two connecting routes from Dong Dang - Tra Linh to Ta Lung Border Gate and Cao Bang city into two independent projects according to expressway standards, creating a synchronous and interconnected traffic network, helping to solve bottlenecks and bottlenecks in traffic infrastructure, exploiting new development space created by the project, focusing on developing border gate economy, border trade economy, smart border gates, bringing the two northern mountainous border provinces, especially Cao Bang province, to develop in the future.
Expected budget to build phase 2 of Dong Dang - Tra Linh highway and two connected projects is over VND 2,000 billion.
"Good news keeps coming, the dream of having a highway to travel has been the wish of the people in the province for many years. When the highway is built, the local economy will improve, everyone has high expectations" - Mr. Ngo Van Phan (Song Bang ward, Cao Bang city) shared.
Cao Bang has long been considered one of the ideal gateways to help Vietnam connect with Guangxi province, the southwestern provinces and Chongqing city (China), and then possibly reach Central Asian countries, Western Europe and ASEAN.
If you go from Chongqing City (China) to some ports of Hai Phong City, all directions are about 200km further than Cao Bang route. The neighboring country always wants to connect this route.
For the above reasons, people expect that when the route is put into operation, the time from Cao Bang to Hanoi, Hai Phong, Quang Ninh will be shortened. The local economy will benefit, production activities will reduce transportation costs; import and export will become a new opportunity for Cao Bang province; when the road is convenient, it will attract more tourists to the locality.
