Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Long Thanh International Airport will open itsdoors by 2025 at the latest and will handle 25 million passengers and 1.2million tonnes of goods a year once the first phase is completed.

Minister of Transport Nguyen Van The, on behalf of the Prime Minister, made thestatement on October 24 as he presented the report on the feasibility study forthe airport’s first phase. The study will be reviewed by the National Assembly(NA) during the ongoing 8th session of the 14th tenure held in Hanoi.

The planned airport, situated near its namesake township in the southernprovince of Dong Nai, is a national key project and expected to become a majorinternational aviation hub in the region when it becomes operational, Thesaid.

The first phase of the project costs an estimated 111.689 trillion VND or about4.779 billion USD, a little lower than the previously NA-approved figure of 4.782billion USD, with ground clearance costs not yet accounted for.

According to the report, the project is made up of three investment phases withthe ultimate goal of making the airport capable of serving 100 millionpassengers and handling 5 million tonnes of goods a year.

In the first phase of the project, one runway and one terminal will be built,together with other components.

Vu Hong Thanh, Chairman of the NA’s Economic Committee, which was charged withassessing the Government’s report, said that many NA deputies want theGovernment to add another runway to the first phase of the project, to makesure that if any incident were to occur, traffic at the airport's operationwould not be disrupted.

However, the committee still gave the nod to the Government’s plan on the firstphase but asked that the Government quickly formulate the second and thirdphases of the projects.

The Government has also requested the NA to approve its plan to assign theState-owned Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) JSC as the main investor forLong Thanh International Airport right away, instead of going through openbidding as stipulated in the Law on Investment.

“Carrying open bidding and weighing which investors to choose will certainlycost us another 1.5-2 years, while truth be told, there couldn’t possibly beany company other than ACV who has the experience, the capacity, and cansatisfy the demands for the insurance of national security in a highlyimportant project like Long Thanh International Airport,” The told theparliament.

According to the Government’s plan, ACV will be the investor and operator ofthe airport, who will use its own capital to invest into the construction ofthe State management administrative building and essential component buildingsof the airport.

ACV can make use of concession contracts to partner up with private businessesto carry out service components of the airport.

For construction components that are meant for air navigation management, theGovernment plans to assign the State-owned Vietnam Air Traffic ManagementCorporation (VATM) to be the investor since this is the only company that isallowed to provide air navigation management services.

ACV expects tocontribute about 1.566 billion USD in capital in the 2019-25 period, or 37 percentof the total investment for the first phase of the airport project, with theremaining 2.628 billion USD coming from loans.

So far, ACV has workedwith 12 foreign and domestic credit organisations and signed memorandums ofunderstanding (MoU) to secure loans of 5 billion USD, with the borrowing termset for 15 years, a grace period of 5 years and an annual interest of 5-5.5 percent./.