Lai Xuan Thanh, chairman of the state-run corporation (ACV), said that after carrying out the appraisal process, the Ministry of Planning and Investment will submit a feasibility study on the airport to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc for approval this month. It is expected that the premier will approve the project in May, Thanh said.

"In case we are assigned to be the project investor, we will select technical design consultants and begin construction next May," he added.

The state-owned ACV, which operates 21 airports, is committed to making every effort to complete the project by 2025, Thanh said.

According to the latest report from Dong Nai, the province has completed payment and disbursement for the priority site clearance for serving the first phase of construction (1,810 hectares). It has paid compensation to the Dong Nai Rubber Corporation and could hand over the site right in the third quarter of 2020.

Last November, over 90 percent of lawmakers voted in approval of a government proposal to build the first phase of the Long Thanh International Airport. After the first phase is complete, the airport will have one runway and one terminal with the capacity of handling 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tonnes of cargo a year.

Investment in the first phase of Long Thanh is set to cost almost VND111.69 trillion ($4.8 billion). After all three phases of the airport are completed by 2050 at a total cost of VND336.63 trillion ($16 billion), it will be able to handle 100 million passengers a year, picking up overflow from the Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, which is currently operating at far above its designed capacity.