A section of the North-South Expressway is under construction. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Transport has allocated nearly VNĐ8.6 trillion (US$359.3 million) for the North-South Expressway’s eastern section of its second phase (2021-2025).

Specifically, investment in the North-South Expressway project - phase 2 totals VNĐ120 trillion ($5 billion), of which VNĐ47.2 trillion ($1.97 billion) is taken from the State budget for the medium-term public investment plan of the 2021-2025 period and VNĐ72.5 trillion ($3.04 billion) is from the State budget for infrastructure investment development under the National Assembly’s Resolution on fiscal and monetary assistance for the socio-economic recovery and development programme.

Up to now, the Government has allocated to the Ministry of Transport VNĐ47.2 trillion ($1.97 billion) for 2021-2025 medium-term public investment capital and it will be disbursed in 2023.

Currently, the ministry has allocated VNĐ257 billion ($10.8 million) for investment preparation and more than VNĐ8.33 trillion ($349 million) for site clearance in 2022.

Localities are actively preparing by approving plans of compensation, support, resettlement and disbursement to meet the required progress.

Regarding site clearance, localities have carried out 95 per cent of measurements in the field, 87 per cent of inventories of land assets and are actively building resettlement areas, compensation plans and site clearance projects in order to hand over 70 per cent of the site area for ​​construction and installation bidding packages by November 20, 2022, and hand over all remaining areas in the second quarter of 2023 at the request of the Government.

Backfill soil for the projects in the Mekong Delta region, which ensure quality embankments, is mainly in the provinces of An Giang and Đồng Tháp, but the limited reserves and exploitation capacity do not meet the needs of the project.

Therefore, the Government assigned the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to study the use of sea sand for traffic works and co-ordinate with the Ministry of Transport and localities in the region to review and evaluate the overall sand supply resources in the region as well as increase exploitation capacity of existing mines, open new ones, and consider exploiting sand in sand dunes to prioritise supply for the project.

The second phase of the expressway project consists of 12 component projects with a total length of 723.7km, of which the Hà Tĩnh-Quảng Trị section is 260.9km, Quảng Ngãi-Nha Trang is 352.1km and Cần Thơ-Cà Mau is 110.9km. — VNS