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(Chinhphu.vn) – “Absolutely do not let the situation drag on, slow down progress and unclear feasible and effective solutions like the recent one”. This is one of the important instructions given by the Prime Minister showing the determination to implement the “super project” Long Thanh International Airport.
Long Thanh Airport has been in the development planning and investment project since 1997. More than 20 years later, on January 5, 2021, the project officially started phase 1, expected to be put into operation in 2025. With a designed capacity to serve 100 million passengers and 25 million tons of cargo per year, after completion of construction, Long Thanh International Airport will be the largest airport in the country.
After more than 2 years of construction, the Long Thanh airport super project is behind schedule.
Promised to do, committed to do
Faced with the above situation, on the first working days of 2023, the 8th day of the Lunar New Year (January 29, 2023), Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh led a Government delegation to directly inspect the construction site of Long Thanh International Airport project.
At that time, the passenger terminal project was identified as the “critical path” of the entire Long Thanh airport project, but the first bid was canceled and was being re-bid for the second time. The project site was still “unfinished”, resettlement areas were not yet completed for people to move in, and construction of some schools was stopped…
At the inspection, the Prime Minister expressed disappointment that “1 year ago, I inspected the project implementation and gave instructions to resolve problems and difficulties, but in reality, the change was not as expected.”
The Head of Government acknowledged: Component projects No. 2 and No. 3 are crucial to the entire project. Although the budget has been allocated, the bidding for the terminal body package was still canceled. The biggest problem is coordination and implementation, ACV is the investor and the Ministry of Transport and the State Capital Management Committee at Enterprises are responsible for this.
The Prime Minister emphasized that if it cannot be done, it must be said from the beginning: “If you promise, you must do it. If you commit, you must fulfill it.”
“The Party and State have paid special attention to the investment policy for the construction of Long Thanh International Airport, and the people are looking forward to the project. We absolutely cannot let the situation drag on, slow down, and not have a clear and effective solution as it has recently,” said the Prime Minister. Right at the meeting, the Prime Minister requested the establishment of a Government Working Group to urge, inspect, and coordinate the work; assigning Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha as the Head of the Group with the participation of leaders of relevant ministries.
Not only paying attention to the project progress, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also directly visited the people in the resettlement area in Loc An commune, Long Thanh district and saw with his own eyes the elementary school project that was under construction but had stopped construction… Listening and asking the people carefully about their new place of residence, the Prime Minister expressed his dissatisfaction with the resettlement work.
The Prime Minister requested Dong Nai province to review, explain and disseminate compensation and resettlement support policies to the people to create consensus. At the same time, it is necessary to harmonize the interests of the State, the people and businesses; the new place of residence of the people must be equal to or better than the old place; quickly complete the medical and educational infrastructure in the resettlement area, avoiding the situation where people move to a new place of residence but their children have no place to go to school.
“Local Party committees and authorities, especially at the district and commune levels, need to be closer to the people and grasp in more detail the situation and needs of resettled people. Infrastructure must be one step ahead so that people are excited to move to their new homes. If it is not yet available, they will hesitate and hesitate.”
– Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh
‘Ultimatum’…
Immediately after the inspection trip and many consecutive meetings, on April 18, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh continued to issue a telegram directing the acceleration of the Long Thanh International Airport Project. The telegram stated: It is necessary to clearly identify the causes and specific responsibilities of related entities, handle them according to the regulations of the Party and the State, and at the same time take timely remedial measures to accelerate the Project’s progress according to the assigned goals.
The Prime Minister requested investors of component projects, the Ministry of Transport, the State Capital Management Committee at Enterprises and relevant agencies to review and clarify the causes and responsibilities of each individual and collective if they fail to complete assigned tasks, slowing down the project’s progress and wasting resources.
ACV is fully responsible for implementing Component 3, reviewing the capacity and organization of the Project implementation in the past time, promptly reporting to the State Capital Management Committee at Enterprises and the Ministry of Transport to take measures to direct the implementation, ensuring publicity, transparency, quality, construction progress, environmental sanitation and not unreasonably increasing the total investment. Reviewing bidding documents to ensure the selection of contractors with full capacity and experience to implement the bidding packages to ensure quality, progress, efficiency according to regulations and assigned tasks…
“The selection of contractors has been clearly regulated, no one can do ACV’s work,” the Prime Minister emphasized.
On July 13, the Government Office issued a document conveying Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s opinion on implementing the bidding package for construction and equipment installation of the passenger terminal, Long Thanh International Airport project.
This bidding package is being implemented slowly, failing to meet the project progress as required by the National Assembly. Therefore, the Prime Minister requested the State Capital Management Committee at Enterprises to strongly direct the Vietnam Airports Corporation to soon select a suitable contractor according to the instructions.
The Prime Minister directed: The project is complex, requiring precision, quality, high technology and compliance with international standards. Therefore, the organization of contractor selection for this package is also very important and must comply with the provisions of the law on bidding.
Most recently, on the morning of August 5, concluding the regular Government meeting, the Prime Minister issued an ultimatum: the Ministry of Transport must start construction of Long Thanh airport terminal in August.
Official groundbreaking ceremony for the passenger terminal – the ‘heart’ of Long Thanh airport
According to plan, on August 31, the construction package 5.10 of the passenger terminal of the Long Thanh International Airport project (Long Thanh airport) will begin construction under the witness of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.
The terminal, with a total investment of nearly 35,000 billion VND, is considered very modern, using 4.0 technology during operation. Package 4.6 – “construction and installation of equipment for runways, taxiways, and aircraft parking areas” – was also launched at the same time.
Vietnam Airports Corporation (ACV) has widely announced that this bidding package will be implemented by the Vietur contractor consortium.
Mr. Lai Xuan Thanh, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ACV, said: The bidding process was carried out seriously, in accordance with regulations, and the unit that met the requirements set out by the investor in the bidding documents was selected. The winning bid price of the consortium was slightly lower than the bidding documents, while the construction period of 39 months remained unchanged.
With a large package, with many contractors in the consortium, how is the progress and quality of the project managed? Mr. Thanh said that he hired a Japanese consulting unit with a lot of experience to replace the investor to supervise the implementation process. Therefore, he will be very assured about the quality and progress of the project according to the design.
The passenger terminal is considered the “heart” of Long Thanh airport with the lotus image used throughout the design process such as: Roof, main view, interior of the check-in area arranged in a centralized form.
The architectural highlight is the skylight and the central atrium of the station, where the artificial waterfall and garden landscape are located.
The station is built on a 150-hectare land area, designed with 2 separate arrival and departure lanes, including a ground floor and 3 floors.
Of which, the total floor area is nearly 376,500 m2, the roof height is 45.55 m, arranging 40 parking positions nearby for aircraft code C, E, F.
Previously, ACV shared that Long Thanh airport terminal was designed and constructed using the most modern technologies in the aviation field, choosing materials according to trends applied to modern airport terminals in the world, ensuring the durability, aesthetics and characteristics of the airport terminal.
At the same time, using covering materials ensures energy savings for the station and is environmentally friendly.
The runway project (package 4.6) is worth 7,308 billion VND, with an expected construction time of nearly 2 years.
The runway is 4,000 m long and 45 m wide; the system includes two parallel taxiways, six quick-exit taxiways, connecting taxiways, with an area of approximately 69.3 hectares; four aircraft parking lots and parking lots for ground service vehicles with an area of approximately 12.4 hectares.
To prepare for the groundbreaking ceremony, ACV and contractors have prepared very carefully in recent days.
Joint groundbreaking ceremony for Tan Son Nhat T3 terminal, 11,000 billion VND
Along with the groundbreaking of Long Thanh Terminal, it is expected that on August 31, Tan Son Nhat Airport Terminal 3 with passenger terminal, high-rise parking garage combined with non-aviation services and the overpass system in front will also be started.
The project has a total investment of nearly 10,990 billion VND, construction in 20 months, exploitation from the second quarter of 2025.
The passenger terminal consists of 1 basement and 4 upper floors, with a total floor area of 112,500 m2. The terminal has 90 check-in counters, 20 automatic baggage check-in counters, 42 check-in kiosks, 27 aircraft gates (13 telescopic gates and 14 bus gates), 6 departure baggage handling islands and 10 arrival baggage return islands, and 25 passenger security control gates.
The T3 Passenger Terminal Construction Project started in December 2022. Contractors then constructed the terminal foundation and platform. At this point, the bidding for the terminal body has been completed and is ready for implementation.
After completion, T3 passenger terminal will be a domestic passenger terminal with a capacity of 20 million passengers/year, handling all types of Code C and Code E aircraft.
The project is being implemented simultaneously with the connecting road expansion projects invested by Ho Chi Minh City, fundamentally solving the congestion at Tan Son Nhat International Airport.
Phan Trang (baochinhphu.vn)
