Quang Ninh Province People's Committee has just sent a letter to the prime minister proposing to seek domestic loans for the Van Don-Mong Cai Expressway project and not accept China's offer of a USD300 million bank loan.

The VietNamNet Newspaper talked to the committee's chairman, Nguyen Duc Long, about their decision:

Q: Why did you refuse the Chinese ODA as earlier proposed by the Ministry of Transport for the project?

A: Firstly, the Van Don-Mong Cai Expressway must be completed by 2020 following a plan approved by the prime minister. Moreover, this project will play an important role in forming the Van Don Special Economic Zone. There will be an airport here and we're proposing to build a casino here as well. Therefore, this is a very important project which should be carried out carefully and completed on time.

At present, we've received submissions from several domestic investors who’ve proposed public-private investment partnership. We’re considering a 70:30 spilt in terms of capital with 70% being sourced from investors and 30% from the provincial budget. I think this is a feasible plan for the four-lane expressway.

The Vietnamese and Chinese governments had discussed a preferential loan from China for the project. However, the loan of USD300 million is also minor compared to the project's estimated total cost of USD800 million, let alone the conditions it would have attached. Vietnamese investors have the capacity to deal with it.

We've discussed with the Ministry of Transport about this and are preparing to go ahead with it soon.

Q: Have you had any road projects using Chinese ODA in Quang Ninh Province?

A: Not yet. We're now carrying out several major road projects using the build, operate and transfer (BOT) model. One of them is the VND7.3 trillion Bach Dang Bridge which is due to completed by mid-2017.

The project to upgrade Highway 18 running through Ha Long-Mong Duong is also done via BOT with total contributions from investors of VND10 trillion. The province only does the site clearance.

And we believe that local investors can well take up the Van Don-Mong Cai project.

Q: Quang Ninh earlier agreed to let the Ministry of Transport become the investor in the Van Don-Mong Cai Expressway project. Why did you decide to take the role now?

A: At that time the ministry intended to take the Chinese loan, so we agreed to let the ministry follow and manage the project.

But now we've seen that the project can be done by local investors so we've worked again with the minister of transport, Truong Quang Nghia, who also supported us in calling for domestic capital.