On January 19, 2022, Tien Giang Provincial People’s Committee and Trung Luong – My Thuan BOT Joint Stock Company held a technical traffic opening ceremony of Trung Luong – My Thuan expressway. The ceremony was honored to welcome President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and members of the delegation to attend, cut the technical vehicle bandwidth. Besides, there was also the participation of Mr. Nguyen Trong Nghia, the Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Head of the Central Propaganda Department and leaders of a number of ministries, branches and localities.

According to Mr. Ho Minh Hoang, Chairman of Deo Ca Group, the technical clearance of the Trung Luong – My Thuan expressway project helps control and evaluate the quality of the work, thereby making adjustments, overcoming, and solving existing problems so that people are satisfied when paying service fees commensurate with quality products. “The interest of the Party, State and government over the years is very clear. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc during his tenure supported the project in transferring the competent state agency to Tien Giang province and arranging capital. In the past year, especially during the outbreak of Covid-19, we received the attention and direction of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh about implementing “3 places”, “1 road, 2 destinations, … We also regularly reported and received the consensus, support and other very specific instructions of the Prime Minister in order to soon bring this project to a milestone to serve the people,” Ho Minh Hoang shared.

Bandwidth cutting ceremony of Trung Luong – My Thuan highway

Speaking at the opening ceremony, President Nguyen Xuan Phuc emphasized that the Trung Luong – My Thuan highway is an important work, contributing to removing traffic bottlenecks for the Mekong Delta region.

According to the President, the project implementation process took a long time due to many reasons, in order to remove difficulties, there were some bold and important decisions made, the first was to transfer the competent State agency to the People’s Committee of Tien Giang, then change the management and operating unit, choose Deo Ca Group as the new management, operation and construction organization. As a result, the project’s problems were overcome such as lack of capital, lack of materials, treatment of soft ground and the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic during construction.

President Nguyen Xuan Phuc spoke at the opening ceremony of Trung Luong – My Thuan expressway

The President emphasized that, with the high determination and drastic direction of the Central Government and Tien Giang province, the participation of scientists and construction units, we have well fulfilled the promise to the people of the Mekong Delta, soon put the works into use, and facilitated the development of this area. This is a winning work of the will, determination and high sense of responsibility of the investor and construction unit; It’s truly a victory of Vietnamese enterprises to rise up.

On behalf of the Party and State leaders, President Nguyen Xuan Phuc specially praised Deo Ca Group for operating, directing and executing day and night to achieve the technical traffic milestone. The President noted that Deo Ca Group and project participants should not be satisfied with the initial results, need to continue to improve to inaugurate the project in accordance with regulations. After that, it is necessary to continue to manage the project well, overcome the shortcomings in quality if any, especially the final settlement and audit of the project in accordance with the law. The mining process must ensure traffic safety and create favorable conditions for people to travel, especially during the 2022 Lunar New Year.

The Trung Luong – My Thuan expressway has a total length of 51.5km, a roadbed width of 17m, a road surface of 16m, including 4 lanes. There are 53 bridges on the route, including 39 bridges on the main route, 14 overpasses and bridges on the connecting route. The total investment is more than 12,600 billion VND, of which the state budget supports more than 2,100 billion VND, investors’ capital and credit capital is more than 10,400 billion VND. Currently, the project has completed the main line and basically completed the connecting routes. The project enterprise will coordinate with the Ministry of Transport, the People’s Committee of Tien Giang province and relevant agencies to control law and order issues during the process of organizing traffic services during the Lunar New Year (from January 25 to February 10, 2022), ensuring safety and convenience for people.

Trung Luong – My Thuan Expressway is a lifeline that plays a particularly important role in trade connecting the Mekong Delta region with Ho Chi Minh City and the southern key economic region, but during the first 10 years of its development, From 2009 to 2019, the project has changed investors twice, changed the total investment three times, and delayed the completion time four times, only achieving 10% of the volume.

During the first 10 years of implementation, the Trung Luong – My Thuan project only achieved 10% of the progress

In March 2019, the consortium of investors invited Deo Ca Group to participate in management and operation through the project enterprise, Trung Luong – My Thuan BOT Joint Stock Company. In April 2019, with the efforts of thousands of officers, engineers, and workers, day and night, to closely follow and work hard to execute the project in the spirit of “three times”: “Through the night”, “through the festivals, Tet Holiday”, “through epidemic”, Deo Ca Group completed the expressway before December 31, 2020, in accordance with the direction of the Prime Minister, just over a year and a half after the restart date.

In 2 years (2020-2021), the project was heavily affected by the Covid-19 epidemic. In June 2021, more than 40 officials and employees were infected, hundreds of officials, engineers and workers had to undergo medical isolation, 13 bidding packages had to suspend construction… Faced with that situation, Deo Ca Group and Tien Giang province reported to the Government, proactively proposing the Ministry of Health to allocate vaccine sources for workers working directly and indirectly at Trung Luong – My Thuan project. At the same time, promptly mobilized additional personnel from other projects to supplement and implement “3 on-site”, “1 road, 2 destinations” in the spirit of not letting construction activities be interrupted.

After nearly 3 years of operating, receiving the support of the people, the attention and direction of the Government, Tien Giang province, ministries and branches, the active disbursement of syndicated banks, especially is the high consensus of investors, contractors and thousands of officials and employees…Deo Ca Group has worked hard day and night to bring the project to the milestone of technical traffic, continue to control quality during circulation before Tet, and will officially put it into operation after technical adjustment.

BY NGUYEN NGA