State-owned Vietnam Expressway Corp. (VEC) will start construction of the Ben Luc-Long Thanh expressway, funded by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in July, said Deputy General Director Pham Hong Quan. The 57.8-kilometer expressway will link Ho Chi Minh City with the Trung Luong expressway in Long An province and the Bien Hoa-Vung Tau expressway in Dong Nai province. The $1.61 billion project, among the seven expressways in HCM City’s master transport plan by 2020, will be developed in two phases and is slated for completion in 2017 to allow vehicles to travel 100 km per hour.
Earlier, the VEC and the ADB signed a loan agreement worth $636 million for the project. (Tuoi Tre – Youth Jun 17 p7)
