Vietnam’s road infrastructure in rural areas has improved five years after a new rural-area-building programme started, but it has still failed to meet demand for social-economic development.

A rural road  (Source: baodanang.vn)

According to Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Nhat, the country has upgraded 47,436 kilometres of rural road, meeting Ministry of Transport (MoT) standards. It also built 61,400 kilometres of new road in hamlets and constructed 15,474 new bridges.

Of the 186.2 trillion VND spent on rural road infrastructure during the period, social resources contributed 4.7 trillion and local residents contributed 27 trillion. The rest came from the State budget.

The MoT implemented official development assistance (ODA) projects worth nearly 5 trillion VND to upgrade and maintain rural road infrastructure.

In many provinces, however, it is still difficult to find enough financial resources to construct more roads because of the difficult terrain and uneven population distribution.

The MoT recommended some solutions to mobilise capital for rural infrastructure in the future, requesting provinces and cities create middle-term investment plans for 2016-2020. It would also study the application of private-public partnerships and the build-operate-transfer model.

Source: VNA