Ministry estimates huge investment needed in road infrastructure

Hanoi (VNA) - The Ministry of Transport and Communication (MoTC) estimates
that it will require almost 60 billion USD to fund road infrastructure from
now until 2020.

To meet these needs, the MoTC intends to establish a road transport
maintenance and management fund, which is expected to come from the State
Budget, credit funds for development, businesses and from the issuance of
Government bonds.

Mai Anh Tuan, Vice Head of the Department for Road Transport expressed hopes
that road transport infrastructure would attract more investors in the near
future as a result of the application of a series of preferential policies
for those investing in the field, especially those investing in the
construction of new expressways.

According to the MoTC's statistics, Vietnam has 256,000 km of roads,
including 200,000 km of urban roads. Approximately 80 percent of highways
and provincial roads in the country have been cemented or asphalted.

Currently, 52 percent of cargoes are transported via roads and the number of
passengers using roads to travel is much higher than those using other
methods.

The MoTC reported that there were 1.1 million buses, 243,000 cars, and 21
million motorbikes in the country in 2007. The number of cars is forecasted
to increase to 2.8 - 3 million by 2020, with the number of motorbikes also
rising to 33 -36 million by this date.-Enditem