HCM CITY — A slew of infrastructure works has begun or been speeded up across the country after Tết (the Lunar New Year) holiday.

Besides its metro lines, HCM City has also stepped up the pace of work at many other major infrastructure projects, including the Beltway No 3, which is expected to reduce traffic congestion in the city by allowing vehicles to bypass it.

In early January, the Ministry of Transport had told the city to begin sub-project No 1 of the Beltway No 3 Project ahead of schedule.

The beltway will also shorten the distance between the city and the new urban area of Nhơn Trạch in Đồng Nai and Bình Dương provinces.

In the first stage, the 97.7km beltway will have four lanes for heavy vehicles and two for others, according to the Cửu Long Corporation for Investment, Development and Project Management of Infrastructure, the project management unit.

It will allow traffic to travel at the speed of up to 100km per hour.

A 16.7km section from Bình Chuẩn to Tân Vạn in Bình Dương Province built under the PPP (Public – Private Partnership) mode has already opened to traffic.

Work on the 34.3km second section through Đồng Nai Province and HCM City will be done in two stages and begin in late 2018 and early 2019.

Thailand’s Siam Cement Group plans to begin construction of the Long Sơn Petrochemical complex in Vũng Tàu City today.

The US$3.4 billion petrochemical plant is expected to produce 1.6 million tonnes of olefin annually.

The 460ha complex in the Long Sơn Industrial Park will have 398ha for plants and 66ha for a port, warehouse and power plants.

The construction is expected to take more than four years.

Also in Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu Province, the Zinc Oxide Corporation Việt Nam JSC began construction of an electric arc furnace dust recycling plant in the Phú Mỹ Industrial Park on January 23.

In the central province of Thanh Hoá, construction of the Nghi Sơn No 2 thermal power plant at an estimated cost of $2.74 billion will begin in the Nghi Sơn IP in Nghi Sơn District in the first quarter, according to the provincial People’s Committee.

The 1,200MW plant will be built by a Japanese consortium comprising Marubeni and Kepco. — VNS