The Government issued Decree No. 67. 2026/ND-CP detailing and implementing measures on overall technical design for investment projects to build national and local railways.
The Decree takes effect from March 4, 2026, supplementing many important regulations in the management of investment and construction in the railway sector.
The decree was issued to concretize the provisions of the 2025 Railway Law related to overall technical design, and at the same time improve the management mechanism for railway construction projects in the new phase.
According to the Decree, the scope of regulation includes detailed regulations on the overall technical design of the national and local railway investment project.
In addition, the document also proposes measures to organize implementation for design, survey, feasibility study report preparation and cost management in the project implementation process.
A noteworthy point is that the Decree clearly stipulates the application of overall technical design according to the FEED (Front-End Engineering Design) method.
This is a design step implemented according to international practice for projects with complex technology elements, aiming to concretize the technology plan, technical parameters of equipment, main materials and construction solutions before deploying the next detailed design steps.
The application of FEED design is expected to help improve project preparation quality, limit risks in the construction process and better control total investment.
Through this design step, the technical parameters, technology requirements and construction solutions of the railway project will be clearly defined right from the investment preparation stage.
The Decree also stipulates contents related to construction surveys serving overall technical design, appraisal of feasibility study reports using FEED design and the implementation of construction design after this design step.
Along with that are regulations on preparing total investment, bidding package estimates and cost estimates for railway projects.
The subjects of application of the Decree are agencies, organizations and individuals at home as well as abroad related to investment activities in the construction of national and local railway lines on Vietnamese territory.
Notably, the regulations on construction investment cost management in the Decree are applied to many different types of capital sources, including projects using public investment capital, state capital outside public investment and projects implemented in the form of public-private partnerships (PPP).
In addition to supplementing new regulations, the Decree also amends and supplements a number of contents in documents related to construction activity management and construction quality management.
These include Decrees on quality management, construction and maintenance of construction works, as well as detailed regulations on the implementation of the Construction Law and the Railway Law.
For projects that have been implemented before the Decree takes effect, the document also provides transitional regulations to ensure that the implementation process is not interrupted.
Accordingly, projects that have been appraised for design or feasibility study reports before the Decree takes effect will continue to be implemented according to previous regulations for the contents that have been appraised.
