The administration in Dong Nai Province in southern Vietnam has handed over the entire cleared site measuring over 2,500 hectares for the first phase of the Long Thanh International Airport project.

The province held a ceremony on Friday to hand over the cleared site to the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), the investor of the mammoth airport project.

Dong Nai People’s Committee acting chairman Vo Tan Duc said Long Thanh International Airport is a key national project that plays an extremely important role in connecting Vietnam and the world as well as localities in the southern key economic region.

Being aware of the importance of the project, the province has spent all-out efforts on the compensation and resettlement work to early hand over the cleared site for the project, contributing to ensuring its progress.

The province mobilized over 100 provincial-level officials to support Long Thanh District in measuring and taking back land lots in 3.5 years.

Dong Nai also handed over nearly 59 hectares of land for a road leading to the airport, meeting 97 percent of the plan.

The province expects to complete the clearance of the remaining area this quarter.

Long Thanh District has approved the resettlement of 4,271 out of the 4,589 households affected by the project and is handling obstacles to the resettlement of the remaining 318 households, according to the Dong Nai People’s Committee.

The site clearance for the Long Thanh International Airport project and two roads linking to the airport has been basically completed, facilitating the execution of the first phase of the project, Duc added.

Dong Nai pledged to continue dealing with issues of the project and take advantage of the airport, when it is in place, to boost the province’s socio-economic development.

With experience in the site clearance for the Long Thanh International Airport project, Dong Nai will strive to speed up land clearing for other key projects passing through the province, such as Bien Hoa-Vung Tau Expressway, Beltway No. 3, and Dau Giay-Lien Khuong Expressway, Duc said.

The site clearance, compensation, and resettlement were separated from the Long Thanh International Airport project. Dong Nai needs to reclaim some 5,354 hectares of land, including 5,000 hectares for the airport and over 364 hectares for resettlement areas.

Over 126 hectares of land is needed to make room for two roads which will be 3.8 and 3.5 kilometers long leading to the airport.

Long Thanh International Airport, once completed, will be the largest airport in the nation with an annual capacity of 100 million passengers and five million metric tons of cargo.

The project needs an estimated investment of some VND336.63 trillion (US$14.1 billion).

The ACV planned to kick off the passenger terminal package and another to build runways and an aircraft parking area at the airport late this month.

The corporation also announced that the Vietur consortium led by Turkey’s IC Ictas won the VND35 trillion ($1.5 billion) bidding package to construct the passenger terminal.

Like us on Facebook or  follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!