The Ho Chi Minh City Urban Railway Management Board on Thursday kicked off the first bid package of phase 1 of a US$1.3 billion metro project, which is the second in Ho Chi Minh City. 

>> 2nd station of Vietnam’s first metro line breaks ground Under the bid package the Hoa Binh Real Estate Construction and Trading Joint Stock Company, the project’s contractor, yesterday started work on an office building and its sub-works on a 22 hectare area at the Tham Luong railway station in District 12. The office is designed to have a basement and eight floors with a total gross floor area of more than 17,000 m².    The bid package, which is valued at over VND173 billion ($8.1 million), is expected to be completed in 480 days. The package belongs to phase 1 of the project to build the second metro line, which will be 20km long, running from Thu Thiem in District 2 to the An Suong Bus Station in District 12. In phase 1, an 11.3km section of the route will be built, running from Ben Thanh Market to Tham Luong, through Districts 1, 3, 10 and 12 and Tan Binh and Tan Phu Districts, with metro trains able to travel at up to 80kph. Of the section, 9.3km will be underground at a depth of 18 meters. The entire second metro line is expected to be completed in 2020, with 11 terminals including 10 underground and one above ground, and an operational capacity of 80,000 passengers per hour.  The total investment of the project is estimated at $1.3 billion, which includes loans from the Asian Development Bank and the German Reconstruction Bank, and corresponding capital from the Vietnamese government. The construction of the first metro line in Ho Chi Minh City began in August 2012. That line is estimated to cost $2.49 billion and will be 19.7km long, running from District 1 through Binh Thanh District, District 2, District 9 and Thu Duc District in Ho Chi Minh City before reaching Di An Town in neighboring Binh Duong Province. Of the total length, 2.6km will run underground with three stations, while the remaining portion will be constructed aboveground with another 11 stations.

The metro line is scheduled to be completed in 2017 and put into operation in 2018, serving about 620,000 passengers per day, the Ho Chi Minh City Transport Department said. A similar metro system is under construction in Hanoi, with work beginning in 2010 and the first line scheduled to come on stream next year.

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