The Airport Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) has submitted to the transport ministry two plans outlining the research report on Long Thanh International Airport Project's first phase feasibility. The first plan, estimated to cost 35.1 million USD, will be divided into two parts. The first part will include data collection, field work, calculation of the air traffic and distribution of the capacity between Long Thanh and Tan Son Nhat airports, as well as the project's scale and division of investment into periods, and finance and valuation on refund possibilities. The second part will divide the project into items of work and set up the feasible research report. Chairman of the ACV Nguyen Ngoc Hung said the funds for the report would be mobilised from the ACV's development fund. It's scheduled to be carried out in 18 months. The second plan, costing 6.9 million USD, will set up the concept design. It's expected to be funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and will be carried out in 15 months. The ACV also asked the transport ministry to allow it to organise competitive examinations to select the design for the airport's terminal and air traffic control tower. At the same time, it will also select the contractor to prepare up a feasible research report. Hung asked the government to allow the ACV to implement the designs and begin construction right after the feasible research report was approved. The airport project was approved by the National Assembly in June this year. Once it's completed, the airport will be able to handle 100 million passengers and five million tonnes of freight a year. The construction is scheduled to begin in 2019 and the airport is likely to become operational by 2023. As per the plan, the project has been divided into three phases. The first phase, expected to be completed in 2025, will allow the airport to handle 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tonnes of freight a year, and will include the construction of a runway, a terminal and supporting infrastructure. The second phase is set to raise the airport's capacity to handle 50 million passengers and 1.5 million tonnes of freight a year. After the airport's third phase is completed, it will have a yearly capacity of handling 100 million passengers and five million tonnes of cargo. The total cost of the three-phase project is estimated to be 336.63 trillion VND (14.95 billion USD). The project's funding is expected to come from the state budget, the Official Development Assistance (ODA), corporate investment and public – private partnership (PPP) besides other resources.-VNA