Over a month of free operation during Canh Ty New year, Bac Giang - Lang Son expressway served 300,000 vehicles travel smoothly and safely.
Bac Giang - Lang Son expressway is also one of the projects with difficult start when it had to restructure and added investors. Photo: VNA
Bac Giang - Lang Son Expressway has been officially put into operation since January 15, shortened the travel time between Hanoi and Lang Son from 3.5 hours to about 2.5 hours compared to National Road 1.
Particularly, over a month the investor implemented free operation for people traveling during Canh Ty New Year, the expressway has helped 300,000 vehicles operate smoothly and safely. This partly reflects the socio-economic efficiency of the new route, reduce the traffic burden and potential accidents on National Road 1.
Mr. Vu Minh Hoang, General Director of Bac Giang - Lang Son BOT Joint Stock Company said that Deo Ca Group (the investor of the project) has decided to inaugurate Bac Giang - Lang Son expressway with 01 month no charge fee during the last Tet while the project is facing difficulties and obstacles in the financial plan due to changes such as reduce 01 toll booth, fee exemption or reduction of 5,000 vehicles, not to mention the consequences that difficult to quantify immediately from outbreak of Corona epidemic (COVID-19).
Bac Giang - Lang Son Expressway, which has been officially in operation since January 15, shortened the travel time between Hanoi and Lang Son from 3.5 hours to about 2.5 hours compared to National Road 1. Photo: Quang Toan/BNEWS/TTXVN
“Putting aside financial difficulties, previously Deo Ca Group also served people free of charge at Cu Mong tunnel for more than 2 months on the occasion of the Lunar New Year 2019”, Mr. Vu Minh Hoang said.
Bac Giang - Lang Son expressway is one of the projects with difficult beginnings when have to restructure and add investors. Particularly, this project was approved by the Government in October 2014 and in April 2015 the Ministry of Transport approved the investment of Bac Giang - Lang Son BOT Joint Stock Company, including 2 Component: National Road 1 component (strengthening the surface of National Road 1 section at Km1 + 800 - Km106 + 500) with a length of 110km; Expressway component (Bac Giang - Lang Son expressway section Km45 + 100 - Km108 + 500) with a length of 64km. The total investment of the whole project is 12,189 billion dong.
The project was started in 2015 but because previous investors are weak management capacity, unable to arrange credit capital, the project was delayed nearly 2 years (until June 2017, National Road 1 component only complete about 13% and the expressway component has not been implemented.)
In order to promote the efficiency of Bac Giang - Lang Son expressway, it is necessary to continue implement Lang Son - Huu Nghi border gate section about 43km. Photo: Quang Toan / BNEWS / TTXVN
After strengthening the investor capacity at the request of the Ministry of Transport, Deo Ca Group has arranged credit, solved the outstanding problems, especially the consequences from the old investor to complete the project. In March 2018, the National Road 1 component was completed and put into operation, improve transport capacity, minimize traffic accidents and ensure traffic safety on the National Road section passing through Bac Giang and Lang Son.
The expressway component has been completed not only compensate for the delayed progress but also to finish earlier than the plan approved by the competent State authority, creating a miracle of progress when completing 64km of expressway in just 2 years, eliminating the stagnation of previous expressway projects in Vietnam when no projects were completed before 5 years.
However, with the inadequacies of the current financial plan that have not been solved and Chi Lang - Huu Nghi route has not been completed, the starting and ending points of Bac Giang - Lang Son is still stop at 30km from Ho Chi Minh and about 43km from Huu Nghi border gate.
With the motto “seek a route instead of an exit”, the investor - Deo Ca Group said, along with the free operation of this expressway they will continue work with Lang Son province and the bank to remove the remaining problems.
With the efforts of related parties, the resolution of the 64km problem of Bac Giang - Lang Son expressway created by Deo Ca Group need to continue to be trusted and applied.
Quang Toan/BNEWS/TTXVN
