The Southern economic hub is rushing to realise its traffic infrastructure plan in which nearly 700km of expressway is expected to be built over the next five years. — Photo baogiaothong.vn

HCM CITY – The Southern economic hub is rushing to realise its traffic infrastructure plan in which nearly 700km of expressway is expected to be built over the next five years.

In the national master plan on the development of the inland expressway network towards 2020, the southern economic hub – including eight localities of HCM City, Tây Ninh, Bình Phước, Bình Dương, Đồng Nai, Bà Rịa – Vũng Tàu, Long An and Tiền Giang – will have four new routes.

They are the 76km long Biên Hòa-Phú Mỹ connecting Đồng Nai and Vũng Tàu Provinces, the 69km linking HCM City to Thủ Dầu Một in Bình Dương Province and Chơn Thành in Bình Phước Province, and another one running from HCM Ciy to Mộc Bài in Tây Ninh Province. The last and the longest expressway project will be around 208km starting from Dầu Giây in Đồng Nai through Liên Khương and to Đà Lạt in Lâm Đồng Province.

A particular network of ring expressway in HCM City is also mapped in the master plan, including the Ring Road No.3 and Ring Road No.4 which are 89km and 198km long, respectively.

An estimated VNĐ313 trillion (US$13.9 billion) is needed to develop the traffic infrastructure in the Southern economic hub over the next five years, according to the authorities.

According to Transport Deputy Minister Nguyễn Ngọc Đông, the Ministry of Transport was and still is investing in the road infrastructure connecting the Southeastern region, the Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta and the Southern economic hub. The three key expressway projects of the ministry are the HCM City-Trung Lương, HCM City-Long Thành-Dầu Giây and the route Bến Lức-Long Thành scheduled to be finished in 2017.

The 40km long HCM City – Trung Lương expressway, opened for traffic in February 2012, is deemed a key connection between HCM City and the Cửu Long Delta region.

The expressway passes through three localities of HCM City, Long An and Tiền Giang, helping to shorten the traveling time from the biggest city in the southern region to Tiền Giang by two thirds, down to 30 minutes from 90 before.

The latest HCM City-Long Thành-Dầu Giây expressway, officially opened in February last year, also dramatically brought down the time moving to neighbouring localities. The 55km road now only takes travellers some 20 minutes to go from HCM City to Long Thành instead of one hour, or just one hour instead of three hours to go to Dầu Giây. – VNS