HCM City pledges to accelerate Metro Line No.2

HCM City, June 28 (VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City will speed up the implementation of the Metro Line No. 2 project, Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Dinh La Thang has affirmed. During his reception for German Ambassador to Vietnam Christian Berger in the city on June 27, Thang said the city welcomes all foreign investors, including German ones to engage in the second phase of the project in the city. For his part, the German ambassador expressed his admiration of the significant achievements the city has made, particularly in transport infrastructure. He also called on Ho Chi Minh City and relevant ministries to facilitate foreign investment, including Germany’s, in a bid to accelerate the implementation of the project. Metro Line 2, which is 11.33km long links Ben Thanh station in District 1 to Tham Luong station in District 12 in the suburbs. It was originally slated to be built from 2010 to 2018 at a total cost of 26.1 trillion VND (1.3 billion USD). This amount included 540 million USD from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), 313 million USD from the German Development Bank (KfW), 195 million USD from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and over 326 million USD from Vietnam's reciprocal capital. However, the project costs last year surged by 51 percent to 2.07 billion USD after design revisions. That amount does not cover Ben Thanh Station and its operation and maintenance costs. The city's Management Authority for Urban Railways attributed the rise in costs to inflation, higher wages and prices of materials and an increased workload. Due to adjustments for site clearance and compensation for the construction of stations, work did not begin until early last year on the section's final station and control building. The project is now expected to be delayed until 2019, one year behind schedule. Total Official Development Assistance (ODA) disbursed for the project from the beginning of 2015 until January 15, 2016 reached nearly 108 billion VND (4.8 million USD), and Vietnamese reciprocal capital was 8 billion VND (360,000 USD)./.