It's not the time to invest in second runway in Long Thành Airport: MoT

Construction at Long Thành International Airport. VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI –  Investment in the second runway in Long Thành International Airport at this stage is not appropriate, said the Ministry of Transport (MoT).

The MoT was responding to the proposal by the Airports Corporation of Việt Nam (ACV) regarding the investment in the second runway and the levelling of the area for the passenger terminal, T3, at Long Thành.

Regarding the investment proposal for the second runway, the ministry said that the airport project was approved by the National Assembly as an investment policy in Resolution No. 94/2015/QH13, which included a number of topics such as goals, scale, total investment and land use needs.

Accordingly, the project is divided into three phases, in which phase one focuses on constructing one runway and one passenger terminal.

It includes auxiliary facilities to handle 25 million passengers annually and 1.2 million tonnes of cargo, planning for those to be completed by 2025.

The second phase is to build an additional runway on the south side of the airport with open configuration according to the approved pre-feasibility study report.

“The proposal to invest in ACV's second runway at this stage is not appropriate in terms of time and investment location according to the scale of investment phasing decided by the National Assembly (NA) in the investment policy of the project," affirmed the ministry.

Therefore, ACV's proposal to change the scale of investment phasing, as approved by the NA’s resolution, needs to carry out procedures for submitting and approving project investment adjustments.

Specifically, it must adjust the content in Clause 6, Article 2 of the resolution.

On that basis, the Prime Minister will approve the adjustment of project component three of Decision No. 1777/QĐ-TTg dated November 11, 2019 to add this item, said the ministry.

Regarding the proposal to level the passenger terminal, T3 area, the ministry said that the proposed content is not the main investment scale of the project’s phase one.

The implementation of this item is similar to gathering and compacting excess land in phase one to serve the next phases within the 722-ha land area of phase two.

Regarding the proposal to use public investment capital to implement this item, the ministry found that, according to the content of the investment approval for the first phase, ACV has built a business plan, accumulated money to implement phase two of the project worth about VNĐ48 trillion (US$1.92 billion) from 2028 to 2032 and oriented for stage three.

Thus, ACV has determined to continue investing in and operating the airport in the next stages.

Currently, the ministry's public investment capital for the 2021-2025 period is no longer available to arrange the implementation of this item. If implemented in the period 2026-2030, the required completion schedule will not be guaranteed.

Therefore, ACV should undertake leveling work at the T3 passenger terminal to ensure synchronisation and implementation progress.

Based on the analysis, the ministry requested ACV, as an investor, to review and update the total investment of project component three to research and supplement the above items, including runway number two and leveling the T3 terminal, to ensure convenience in procedures, capital sources, and investment progress.

In case the total investment of project component three is exceeded, ACV must report and ask for the agreement of the State Capital Management Committee as a basis for submitting additional appraisal and approval. VNS