Hanoi (VNA) - The Ministry of Transport (MoT) plans to raise 153.8million USD over the next five years for a transportation upgrade project inthe Central Highlands over the next five years.

National Route No 19 will be the beneficiary ofthis project, mainly funded by the World Bank’s International DevelopmentAssociation (IDA) loans (150 million USD). The remaining 3.8 million USD willbe provided by the State in counterpart funding.

Project preparations, already underway sincelast June, will continue until February 2019, and implementation will run fromFebruary 2019 to June 2022.

The project will complete the upgrade of 142kmof National Route No 19, including: 16km (from Km51 152 to Km67) through BinhDinh province; 23km (from Km67 to Km90) through Gia Lai province; 36km fromKm131 300 to Km167, and 67km from Km180 to Km247. It will also constructtwo bypass routes 13.7km and 13-21km long in Gia Lai’s An Khe and Pleiku citiesrespectively.

The project is expected to help strengthen Vietnam’sroad links with neighbouring countries, considerably boost connectivity –transportation and logistics services – along the East-West corridor, fromCentral Highlands to central coastal provinces; and build a traffic safetycorridor on National Highway 19, meeting international traffic safetystandards.

Despite its importance, the International RoadAssessment Programme (iRAP) had in 2012 rated National Route No 19, originallybuilt during the French colonisation, at 1-2 stars – putting it in thehigh-risk category. Among the reasons cited for the low safety rating wereinsufficient width and low traffic safety awareness among ethnic minoritygroups.

WB advisors then proposed that this route beincluded in the Road Safety Project that the bank was funding. It was the mainroute connecting the Central Highlands region with National Route No 1 andinternational seaports, the advisors argued.

Measures have since been proposed to elevate theroute’s safety status to at least 3 stars. However, since the Road SafetyProject would soon come to an end, this proposal was shelved.

Two years later, in 2014, National Route No 19once again was put back on the table, this time by then Deputy Prime MinisterNguyen Xuan Phuc, at a conference on sustainable development in the centralcoastal region.

The workshop was jointly organised by theMinistry of Investment and Planning and the World Bank. The World Bank hadexpressed its approval of the proposal on National Route No 19.

At the transport ministry’s request, the bank’spre-feasibility study team visited Vietnam, conducted field trips and met withlocal authorities in Binh Dinh and Gia Lai provinces. The team concluded thatthe project was feasible and necessary.

Deputy PM Pham Binh Minh, in approving the MoT’sproject proposal, has asked that the use of loans for land clearance bethoroughly deliberated and decided by the Prime Minister.-VNA