Borrowed 150 million USD from the World Bank to upgrade National Highway 19 through the Central Highlands

The Ministry of Transport has just requested the Ministry of Planning and Investment to consider and submit to the Prime Minister for approval the Project Proposal to Enhance Traffic Connection in the Central Highlands (QL19), using loan capital from Qu BankInternational Conference on Reconstruction and Development – ​​IBRD (part of the World Bank – WB)

The project has a total investment of 170 million USD, equivalent to 3,786 billion VND, of which the WB's IBRD capital is 150 million USD, equivalent to 3,341 billion VND; The Vietnamese Government's counterpart capital is 445 billion VND, equivalent to 20 million USD.

According to the proposal of the Ministry of Transport, the project has the goal of upgrading 170 km of National Highway 19 to level III road standards, of which Binh Dinh province will upgrade the section Km51+152 - Km67 with a length of 16 km; Gia Lai province will upgrade the 23 km long sections Km67 - Km90; Km131+300 – Km167 is 36 km long, Km180 – Km247 is 67 km long. In addition, the project also builds two bypass routes through major towns: An Khe town, 10 km long, and Pleiku city, 18 km long.

If approved by the Prime Minister, the project preparation time will start from June 2016 - June 2018, and implementation will begin from July 2018 - June 2021.

Through analyzing the project's objectives and ability to collect payback fees, the Ministry of Transport recommends applying the state budget financial mechanism to allocate 100% of IBRD loan capital for the project.

It is known that the World Bank (WB) is currently very interested in the Project and has sent a Pre-project Determination Team from February 17-26, 2016 and a Project Determination Team from May 30, 2016 to June 3, 2016 to work with the Ministry of Transport, localities and go to the field to learn and determine the necessity, content and scale of the project.

Accordingly, the WB assesses that project investment is necessary and is willing to sponsor the project. On February 1, 2016, the WB sent an official letter to the Ministry of Planning and Investment of the WB's expected loan list for the 2016-2017 period, according to which the Project to Enhance Traffic Connection in the Central Highlands (National Highway 19) is on the waiting list for 2017.

Route National Highway 19 has a total length of 229 km. At the end of 2013, section Km17+027 - Km51+152 in Binh Dinh province and section Km90 - Km131+300 in Gia Lai province were seriously degraded, causing traffic insecurity. The Ministry of Transport decided to approve the investment project in the form of BOT to call for investment and was completed at the end of 2015. The remaining sections from Km51+152 - Km90, Km131+300 - Km168 have also been degraded, many unsafe traffic spots have not been invested in to meet the needs of travel and traffic safety.

Investment in upgrading National Highway 19 in the Southern Economic Corridor of the Greater Mekong Subregion will help connect traffic smoothly from Cambodia through the Central Highlands region to the Central Coast provinces and connect to Quy Nhon port, promoting trade in goods, attracting investment in the Central Highlands region, thereby gradually eliminating hunger, reducing poverty, and developing the region's economy, especially the National Highway 19 area from Pleiku city to Le Thanh border gate, where there is progress. Low economic development, high rate of poor households (especially poor ethnic minority households) are in need of central support.