On April 28, 2024, at the square north of Nui Vung Tunnel, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh cut the ribbon to inaugurate the North-South Eastern Expressway Construction Project for 2017 - 2020, Cam Lam - Vinh Hao section.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and delegates cut the ribbon to inaugurate the Cam Lam - Vinh Hao expressway
Addressing the audience, the Prime Minister underscored the transformative impact of the Cam Lam - Vinh Hao and Dien Chau - Bai Vot expressways. These new routes, now operational, will connect the city of Ho Chi Minh to Khanh Hoa province and Hanoi to Nghe An province. This will alleviate traffic congestion on National Highway 1, reduce travel time, enhance safety, and cater to the growing needs of travel, transportation, tourism, cultural and social exchanges. Importantly, this development will boost economic growth, unlock the tourism potential of Khanh Hoa, Nghe An provinces, and the North Central and South Central provinces.
The Head of the Government thanked the workers and engineers for not being afraid of hardships, with the spirit of "overcoming the sun and the rain" who worked through the ceremony to complete the Cam Lam - Vinh Hao expressway project. The expressway was implemented, bringing the total number of expressways on the North-South axis to 1,187km and the total length across the country to over 2,000km.
“This is a very respectable result, under the leadership of the Party, the regular direct direction of the Politburo, especially the direction of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, who is always concerned and worried about expressway projects. It is also the result of the efforts of businesses, people, and the entire political system" Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed.
Creativity in capital mobilization, breakthrough to reduce total investment
Reporting at the inauguration ceremony, Mr. Le Quynh Mai - Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of DEOCA Group and representative of the Cam Lam - Vinh Hao Expressway Project investor consortium, said that the project construction process is a process of overcoming difficulties continuously from unlocking capital sources, overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as handling geological anomalies and fluctuations in construction material prices.
The Prime Minister encouraged staff to operate the temporary rest stop on Cam Lam - Vinh Hao highway
Implementing the Prime Minister's direction with the spirit of "overcoming the sun, overcoming the rain," "eat quickly, sleep quickly," and "just work, don't talk back"... joint venture investor Deo Ca - 194, led by DEOCA Group, has proposed solutions to overcome difficulties to speed up implementation progress.
In the field of project finance, with experience in successfully implementing many projects with significant total investments, investors have proactively sought new directions in arranging capital sources right from the start of participating in the auction. contractor
"We determined that we cannot rely too much on loans from commercial banks. Instead, we must create a PPP+ capital mobilization model including P1+: State budget capital; P2+: Equity; and P3+: other capital sources mobilized by investors in many forms such as bond issuance, stock market, and BCC investment cooperation contract," said Mr. Le Quynh Mai.
Mr. Le Quynh Mai - Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of DEOCA Group, reported on the project implementation process.
During the implementation process of the Cam Lam—Vinh Hao Expressway Component Project, investors learned several lessons that are decisive to the success of the project. One is the timely participation and drastic direction of the Government, Ministry of Transport, and localities to resolve difficulties in progress, space, materials, and finance when implementing the project. State budget support for projects in difficult areas is important for project success.
For highway PPP projects, there needs to be a mechanism for credit institutions to provide long-term loans and preferential interest rates for transport infrastructure investment projects using the PPP method because of the unique nature of this type of project. This project is to create public assets. It is necessary to account for costs arising from unexpected factors in the project on the principle of not increasing the state budget but adjusting the payback period.
Overcoming construction difficulties to bring the project to its destination on time
Initially, the location of the Cam Lam—Vinh Hao Project Management Board's house had no access road, no electricity, no water, and no internet. Deo Ca opened the road, pulled electricity, found a source of water for daily use, connected to the internet, and built a field office and a spacious housing area with full amenities for workers to work with peace of mind.
Despite the challenging circumstances of the COVID-19 epidemic, the DEOCA Group demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptability. They increased recruitment and training of local human resources, worked tirelessly 'through the night, through holidays, through epidemics', and made concerted efforts to mobilize thousands of personnel, machinery, and equipment and arrange project construction sites.
Overcoming the "epidemic storm," the project faced a "storm of material prices." The Project Management Board proactively proposed additional mines of materials to be supplied according to a specific mechanism, combined with taking advantage of improved agricultural land and using timely tunneling rock sources for construction.
In particular, the geology needed to be stronger and differed significantly from the technical design documents when constructing the Nui Vung Tunnel. The road items generated much excavation for roadbed rocks, and orphan rocks of different sizes appeared large (some up to about 10,000m3), generating soft soil treatment of nearly 1km.
TPrime Minister Pham Minh Chinh spoke at the inauguration ceremony
Previously, on April 23, the State Inspection Council for construction project acceptance announced the results of the investor's acceptance test for the Cam Lam - Vinh Hao expressway project. The Council unanimously approved putting the Cam Lam - Vinh Hao section project into operation. This is also the earliest project to receive an approval notice from the State Inspection Council among the North-South Expressway PPP projects implemented in the same period.
The Council acknowledged and appreciated the collective efforts of investors, contractors, and related parties who managed to complete large-scale highway projects despite numerous challenges during project implementation (such as the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, site clearance work, and construction material sources). These projects involved many complex technical construction items, ensuring construction progress was in line with the contract's provisions and the Prime Minister's direction.
The inside of Nui Vung Tunnel has been completed
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hoai, Director of Project Management Board 85, highly appreciated the investor's ability, good financial potential, and experience successfully implementing many complex projects in the past. Therefore, the project was funded very quickly. It involved a huge amount of work and many difficulties, but the investors were able to cope.
"In Cam Lam - Vinh Hao, there is the attention and direction of the National Assembly, the Government, the Ministry of Transport, the close coordination of localities and related units, along with project enterprises with high determination, work methodically, work creatively, especially "respect your promises" to complete the project on time.
One especially noteworthy thing is that the top leaders of investment enterprises, although managing large enterprises, are very close to specific tasks and are regularly present at the construction site to direct management, implement, discuss, and coordinate with relevant parties, promptly urge to remove difficulties and obstacles for the project," Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hoai said.
Ready to operate
As soon as the Cam Lam - Vinh Hao project was completed, the project enterprise proposed and was approved to operate the expressway from April 26 to serve increased travel demand during the holidays. ITS equipment clusters and cameras along the route are arranged to operate on solar energy, saving power consumption, reducing costs, and protecting the environment.
The Prime Minister presented gifts to the workers of the Nui Vung Tunnel Cultural Management Center
The project investor proactively spent money to build temporary rest stops on the route to serve people for free while waiting for the Ministry of Transport to approve investment in building official rest stops. The "sprint" investor completed the temporary rest stop in just 20 days, arranged a clean toilet area, connected the power grid, installed air conditioning, and drilled a water well nearly 300m deep to overcome water source difficulties. Operate temporary rest stops to serve people traveling on the route for free.
The temporary rest stop at Km113 was built by the investor at his own expense
Since implementing the project, the project enterprise has prioritized recruiting local workers to participate in construction. Upon completion, the project enterprise proactively trains and trains this local human resource at the Deo Ca Practical Training Center to be ready for project management and operation and to improve operational efficiency. The project is implemented to provide safety, comfort, and smoothness for people traveling through this highway.
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