Vietnam is once more considering the construction of a standard-gauge high-speed rail link running the entire length of its coastal lowlands to connect Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Rejected before as prohibitively expensive, the railway would link the country’s two main cities, which are 1,137km apart as the crow flies, and would provide an alternative to the slow, rickety and dangerous line the Vietnamese use now.
Last month the government said a pre-feasibility study will analyse the effects of the line on Vietnam’s economy and its ability to pay for it, and would suggest a timetable for the work.
Deputy transport minister Nguyen Ngoc Dong said the study would be finished in the next two years. If it is approved by the National Assembly, the ministry will begin to mobilise funds for the project.
Vietnam’s main north-south line is a 1,726km single-track metre-gauge system.
The rail link would be part of the emerging pan-Asian system, which would connect all southeast Asia’s capitals with China. The system has been made possible by Chinese development finance, however this may not be possible for the Vietnamese stretch: Sino-Vietnamese relations, awkward at the best of times, have been chilled by disputes in the South China Sea, and Vietnam has aligned itself diplomatically with Japan and the US.
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