Accordingly, the Minister requested the contractors to mobilize more machinery, equipment and human resources to urgently carry out the construction, taking advantage of favorable weather to speed up progress because this project has been too slow, the time to complete the project is not much left. The Minister emphasized that foreign contractors are slow in implementing construction, the investor (Vidifi) urged and reminded.

Also related to the progress of the project, the Minister requested the investor to create conditions for contractors to organize construction in 3 shifts and proactively source materials according to schedule. Currently, each day the construction site needs 20,000 m3 shifts, while the investor manages the material source to only supply 2 - 3,000 m3, this is one of the reasons leading to delayed bidding packages.

Minister Dinh La Thang listened to the contractor report on project progress.

Minister Dinh La Thang listened to the contractor report on project progress.

To be more proactive in organizing construction, the Minister required the investor to immediately repair the public service road to ensure the transportation of materials and storage when the rainy and stormy season approaches and have a plan to organize continuous construction to speed up the progress of the project. At the same time, the Investor must coordinate more closely with contractors throughout the route, more drastically. If any contractor is behind schedule, they will be fined. If they continue to delay, they will be replaced by another qualified contractor, because this project is important not only for the investor but also for the entire transportation industry for the benefit of socio-economic development of the region and the whole country.

Responding to the investor's recommendations, the Minister agreed to adjust the 3.5km collector road section of package EX 1 (the section through Gia Lam district) to suit Hanoi's planning and agree with the plan for traffic flow when building the intersection with Ring Road III.

The Minister assigned the Ministry's advisory agencies to agree with the investor to report to the Minister on project adjustments in March. Regarding the design of a different level intersection between the Hanoi - Hai Phong expressway and the Tan Vu - Lach Huyen project, the Minister agreed to follow a phasing plan, first making a different level intersection.

In order for the project to be completed in 2014, the Ministry of Transport will create maximum conditions for support
Cinvestment in the context of extremely difficult capital mobilization and delayed site clearance

Finally, the Minister emphasized that the project must be completed by 2014, so investors must  make more efforts to accelerate progress. The Ministry of Transport will absolutely support investors because in difficult times like this, mobilizing capital and  encouraging investors to build traffic projects is very important.

Previously, Minister Dinh La Thang and Deputy Minister Le Manh Hung along with specialized management agencies of the Ministry of Transport had a survey and inspection of construction progress along the Hanoi - Hai Phong expressway. It is known that this project is nearly 100km long and is divided into 10 construction packages across provinces and cities: Hanoi, Hung Yen, Hai Duong and Hai Phong, carried out by Korean and Chinese contractors. Currently, the contractors executing packages EX7 and EX9 have completed over 40% of the work volume, while other contractors have only completed 1.5 to 15% of the work volume.

According to the investor, the reason for the slow progress is because foreign contractors are working in Vietnam for the first time, so the implementation work is still awkward, construction preparation and selection of labor, equipment and subcontractor suppliers are still slow. In addition, slow site handover, technical design adjustments, unfavorable weather and insufficient material supply also caused the project to fall behind schedule.

According to Transport Newspaper