Passengers wait for taxis at HCM City's Tân Sơn Nhất Airport. VNA/VNS Photo

HCM CITY — The People’s Committee of HCM City has approved a plan to acquire more than 16 ha of military land to build a new terminal (Terminal 3) at Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport.

The land area in wards 4, 12 and 15 of Tân Bình District is now under the management of the Air Defence-Air Force of the Ministry of National Defence. The handover of the area will be done by the end of this month for the construction of Terminal 3.

According to the ministry, about VNĐ1.15 trillion (US$48.2 million) is needed for the land clearance work.

In May 2020, the Government of Việt Nam approved the construction of Terminal 3 and other supporting facilities. The domestic terminal is expected to manage 20 million passengers per year, helping to reduce pressure on Terminal 1.

Chairman of HCM City People's Committee Phan Văn Mãi asked Tân Bình District to fully implement procedures for land acquisition, compensation and support to ensure publicity, transparency and democracy in accordance with the law.

He also asked for synchronous co-ordination among relevant authorities to effectively implement compensation and support work.

He also asked for effective dissemination of legal policies on land recovery, compensation and support.

On July 28, 2022, Deputy Prime Minister Lê Văn Thành signed Resolution No. 93/NQ-CP of the Government to remove obstacles in handing over defence land for the implementation of the Terminal 3 passenger terminal project and the project of connecting roads.

Accordingly, the Government agreed to the proposal of the Ministry of National Defence to hand over about 27.85 hectares of defence land in Tân Bình District to the HCM City People's Committee, of which about 16.05 ha would be for the construction of the new terminal and 11.8 ha for opening roads that lead to the terminal.

At a meeting with HCM City leadership in July 2022, Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính directed the Ministry of Transport to soon complete the procedures to start construction of Terminal 3 in the third quarter of 2022 and complete it by September 2024.

Tân Sơn Nhất Airport is the largest and busiest airport in Việt Nam.

It handles 840-850 flights and 130,000 passengers a day.

The airport has been overcrowded for years, and the result has been visible cracks in the infrastructure as well as subsidence of runways and taxiways. It has been serving 36 million passengers a year since 2017 against a designed capacity of 25 million a year. VNS