Almost all 36 investors who are interested in developing subprojects of the big-ticket North-South Expressway are South Korean and Chinese enterprises, with two coming from France.

36 investors submitted dossiers for subprojects in the North-South Expressway. (Photo: VIR)

On July 10, the project management board under the Ministry of Transport (MoT) started to open the preliminary screening to select investors for seven of the eight subprojects of the North-South Expressway. The construction will be implemented under the public-private partnership (PPP) model.

These subprojects lured in 51 dossiers from domestic, foreign, and joint venture investors, a number of whom expressed interest in numerous subprojects.

There are numerous famous contractors, including Daewoo Engineering & Construction which developed the Daeha shopping and office building, Lotte Engineering & Construction which developed the Lotte building in Hanoi and joined in the bid for Danang-Quang Ngai Expressway, and Hyundai Engineering & Construction which successfully developed numerous expressways and railways in South Korea.

Regarding Chinese investors, China Railway Sixth Group (CRSG), the general contractor of Cat Linh-Hadong elevated railway, is also interested in joining subprojects.

Within the next 30 days, the project management board will score dossiers based on criteria built by the MoT. Five potential investors will be selected for each subproject, and then these lists will be submitted to the MoT to assess and approve within 20 days.

After the preliminary screening,The MoT plans to organise bids from October and then release the final results in March 2020. After that, the parties will sign contracts in April 2020.

With these eight subprojects, the government will spend VND40.36 trillion ($1.75 billion) for land clearance and resettlement.

The North-South Expressway will cover 2,109 kilometres in total, stretching from the northern province of Lang Son to the southernmost province of Ca Mau.

According to research from domestic and international consultants, by 2020, the North-South corridor will serve 45.37 million passengers per year, and serve the transportation of up to 62.27 million tonnes of cargo per year.