VND300 trillion needed for infrastructure projects in HCMC

HCMC – The HCMC government will need around VND300 trillion (US$13.2 billion) for its urban infrastructure projects by 2020 but its budget can meet half the amount at best, heard a meeting on June 13. The city will be able to arrange a mere VND164 trillion for these projects by 2020, said Le Thi Huynh Mai, deputy director of the HCMC Department of Planning and Investment. City vice chairman Tran Vinh Tuyen said the city’s population had grown to a whopping 13 million, including migrants from other parts of the country, so the city had come under huge pressure to carry out new infrastructure projects, especially in the inner-city districts which account for 12 million residents. The city is in dire need of new hospitals and schools while the city is working hard to pay for about 199,000 State employees. The central Government has asked the city to reorganize its administrative agencies and make some of them financially independent to ease the burden for the State budget, he added. According to a Department of Planning and Investment plan presented on June 13, the city will opt for public-private partnership (PPP) as a key investment format for future infrastructure projects, including 54 projects previously allowed to use State capital, totaling more than VND18.4 trillion. The city will push for 105 PPP projects worth a total of VND334.6 trillion and encourage the private sector to participate in 98 others capitalized at about VND128.8 trillion, according to the department. The department said the city will introduce an attractive mechanism for luring private capital into vital projects, especially for social housing, resettlement and infrastructure.