Vietnam’s parliament has voted for a US $67 billion high-speed railway that would reduce a 35-hour train trip from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City to just 5.5 hours.
The 350-km rail line would require the removal of 120,000 residents and parts of protected forests and rice fields, the National Assembly said after approving the plan.
Construction will start in 2027 on a project that’s been under review for 18 years, during which time the Southeast Asian country has been outpaced by neighbour Laos, which has a Chinese bullet train and population smaller than Hanoi’s
Available figures from the Vietnam Timber and Forest Products Association show local businesses are shipping more than US $14 billion worth of wood and wood products abroad, with US $1.49 billion going to China.
Typically, Vietnam is focused on exporting raw wood coded HS44 to China, with more than 20 products making up about 80% of its total wood exports. Among them, wood chips represent a large proportion of the country’s total annual wood.
Before the vote, lawmakers debated the railway’s possible “negative impacts” such as construction pollution and habitat destruction. They want Vietnam to “carefully evaluate the social and cultural impacts, especially in areas with ethnic minorities and those living on agriculture.
The 1500-km railway line would run along most of the country’s spine, crossing 23 stations in 20 provinces and cities. The payback period on the public investment would be 33.6 years, says a report by NikkeiAsia.
Vietnam is an increasingly crucial supply-chain alternative to China, but poor infrastructure means sending goods from north to south can be costlier than shipping them to Singapore, which analysts hope would change with upgrades like a bullet train.
Besides linking economic hubs, the railway could meet “dual-use requirements for national defence and security, transporting goods when necessary.
Vietnam would borrow no more than 30% of the project’s budget domestically or through foreign aid, and has been looking at models in Japan and China. The Vietnamese government stressed the need to manage public debt and prepare technical standards, such as making different rail gauges compatible with various sections of existing lines.
The transport ministry estimates a bullet train could travel 5.5 hours from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, which currently takes more than a day on the railway built by French colonisers. The explosion of budget travel also has allowed millions to fly between Vietnam’s two biggest cities in about two hours.
