The Government will invest around 109.7 trillion VND (4.8 billion USD) into transport infrastructure in the Central Highlands from now to 2020, according to the region’s steering committee.

Of the amount, 66.253 trillion VND comes from the State budget, government bonds and official development assistance (ODA) and the remaining will be sourced from resources in society.

 Building roads in rural areas.

The Government will use 53.362 trillion VND from the amount to implement 12 projects that upgrade and build some sections of national highways.

The Day Giay - Lien Khuong Highway will be invested in the form of Build-Operation-Transfer (BOT) with an estimated total investment of 37.5 trillion VND.

A 65-km railway is going to be built in the region to serve the aluminum production and connect the Central Highlands to seaports with a cost of 5.7 trillion VND.

For local transport system, the Government will invest more than 25 trillion VND to build and upgrade trans-regional roads and roads connecting with other provincial and rural roads.

According the steering committee, the Government has mobilised 62.637 trillion VND during 2010-2015 to upgrade the road network in the Central Highlands, in which 18.722 trillion VND for provinces to improve their local roads, 10.332 trillion VND for rural roads and 4,403 billion VND for provincial roads.

The provinces themselves also invested 1.043 trillion VND to build 493 bridges for remote or disadvantaged areas.

Besides that, airports in the region such as Pleiku in Gia Lai province, Buon Ma Thuot in Dak Lak province and Lien Khuong in Lam Dong province were upgraded as well.

The Central Highlands currently has 35,639 kilometres of roads, in which the total length of national highways is 3,128 kilometres, the provincial roads 2,302 kilometres, rural roads 27,721 kilometres, specialised roads 648 kilometres and urban roads 1,840 kilometres.

Source: VNA