The Government has told the developer of Long Thanh Airport and relevant agencies to look further into environmental impact on and capital sources for the mammoth project, slated for getting off the ground soon in Dong Nai province.
The Government has told the developer of Long Thanh Airport and relevant agencies to look further into environmental impact on and capital sources for the mammoth project, slated for getting off the ground soon in Dong Nai province.
The Government also required more financial and economic analyses of the multi-billion project to be sent to agencies concerned for consideration and comment, after the developer - Southern Airports Corp. (SAC) submitted its report on the master plan for the airport to the Ministry of Transport more than one month ago.
The ministry will ask the developer to improve the master plan based on the feedbacks from relevant agencies for the project before forwarding it to the Government for consideration and approval. Details relating to construction phases, investment capital mobilization, and economic links between this future airport and Tan Son Nhat Airport among others will be weighed.
Trinh Van Anh, head of the investment cooperation agency at the Dong Nai Department of Planning and Investment, told a business forum in HCMC that preparations for the Long Thanh airport were progressing, as SAC and its partners were doing their utmost to begin construction of the project.
Anh revealed Dong Nai Province had established a committee responsible for site clearance and compensation in an attempt to help commence construction of the project covering 5,000 hectares in the southern province. He noted site clearance was not a problem as two-thirds of the project was rubber plantations.
The SAC report envisages phase 1 of the two-part project would go online in 2020 at the latest, with two 4,000-meter-long runways, terminals able to handle 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of cargo a year, an aviation academy and other auxiliary works.
Scheduled to take place from 2020 to 2035, phase two of the project includes a third runway, and capacity expansion of terminals for 80-100 million passengers and three million tons of cargo a year by 2035.
SAC will gradually move commercial and aviation activities at Tan Son Nhat Airport to Long Thanh Airport from 2030 to 2035.
The Long Thanh airport project is estimated to need more than US$6.7 billion from different sources including the State budget, Government bonds, official development assistance (ODA) funds, public private partnership (PPP), private investors, airlines and airport operators.
An SAC executive told the Daily at an aviation seminar in HCMC last June that domestic and foreign investment were expected to go to Long Thanh Airport. However, he said the types of capital sources would be identified and raised after the Government endorsed the master and implementation plans for the airport.
In July 2005, the Government approved the location, scale and functions of Long Thanh Airport, which is over 40 kilometers from the heart of HCMC and 48 kilometers from Vung Tau City. Last year, SAC was designated to map out the master plan for the project.
As approved previously, the airport would have four 4,000-meter-long, 60-meter-wide runways for modern aircraft to land and take off, including the world’s biggest commercial passenger plane Airbus A380; modern passenger and cargo terminals; hangars; areas for airport management; and jet fuel storage facilities.
Long Thanh Airport is about four times bigger than the existing Tan Son Nhat Airport in HCMC in terms of handling capacity when it is completed. The future airport will be developed into a regional hub for airlines and replace Tan Son Nhat as the nations biggest international airport.
(Source: SGT)
