Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai agreed to use the capital from the Project Preparation Technical Assistance Facility (PPTAF) funded by the World Bank for Danang-Quang Ngai Expressway in order to kick off the project within the year. According to the government Office, the Government also endorsed the bidding result of the technical design consultation services packages for the Danang-Quang Ngai Expressway route as a whole. The government requested the Ministry of Transport to direct its agencies to review and manage the contracts they had signed with contractors to ensure the bidding package will be deployed on schedule and the PPTAF will be used effectively. The ministry had assigned the Project Management Unit No.85 to execute the $12.1 million consultancy packages. In Nov 2011, the PMU signed a contract with a Japanese consortium consisting of Nippon Koei, Nippon Engineering Consultants, Chodai and Thai Engineering Consultants to carry out the design and consultation process. The fund to develop the route is already available, the ministry said. During the trip to check the site clearance progress in February, Minister Dinh La Thang said work on the project would start in 2012. The expressway, part of the cross-country expressway route, has a length of 139 kilometers and includes six lanes with designed velocity of 120km per hour. It starts from Hoa Vang district in Danang city and ends in the west of Quang Ngai province. The project costs VND28 trillion, or $1.472 billion with $631 million from WB and $673 million from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Once operational, the expressway will help shorten the travel time between Danang, Quang Nam and Quang Ngai, reduce traffic overload on National Highway 1 and connect transportation between Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam with seaports in the central region via the East-West Economic Corridor. (thesaigontimes.vn Jul 19, chinhphuonline.vn)
