Minister orders daily review of Long Thanh airport progress

Minister of Transport Nguyen Van The issued the instruction to make sure the construction remains on schedule. The ACV will be the operator of the airport in Dong Nai Province near Ho Chi Minh City, which is scheduled to open in 2025.

The also instructed the head of the board managing the construction to hold a meeting every week to review progress, and the CEO of the ACV to hold another one every fortnight and report to his ministry.

The ACV should direct the contractors to focus all their human resources on speeding up the work, he said.

It has to work closely with Long Thanh authorities to receive land in schedule to ensure work remains on track, he said.

The construction has entered the ground leveling stage, and next on the schedule are passenger and cargo terminals, hangars and traffic infrastructure.

Work began in Jan. last year after years of preparations and land acquisition. But by February 2022 only fencing and demining had been done, causing Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh to express his displeasure.

The airport, expected to cost US$16 billion, will have an annual capacity of 100 million passengers and five million tons of cargo.

The original deadline for its opening was December 2025, but Lai Xuan Thanh, ACV’s chairman, said in January that the work will be completed six months ahead of schedule.