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The Ministry of Transport has asked the two provinces of Bac Giang and Lang Son to coordinate with the investor to clear the ground from June and strive to complete the work in 2017.

The ministry said that due to difficulties during the project’s implementation, the investor had sent documents to localities asking for halting the approval of site clearance plan in the second quarter of 2016.

In order to remove difficulties and obstacles and speed up the progress of the project, the Ministry of Transport held meetings with the investor to review the situation and put forth measures to deal with the delay in the implementation of the project, including the mobilisation of equity capital and credit capital.

"So far, the investor has basically conducted commitments and ensured the necessary conditions for the continued implementation of the Bac Giang - Lang Son highway project", Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Hong Truong said.

The Bac Giang - Lang Son highway project aims to build a 64 km high-speed highway with four lanes along with the enhancement of 110 km of existing National Road 1 surface with a total investment of nearly 12.2 trillionVND.

The project is scheduled to finish in 2018. However, due to sluggish credit capital, and shortage of equity capital, by the end of December 2016, the investor disbursed only 560 billion VND (or 4.1 percent) using equity capital.

Over the past time, due to capital shortage, the investor has just focused on upgrading National Highway 1. Although the site clearance is considered an important work, the capital deficit has made the investor fail to meet disbursement needs, leading to some localities’ complaints on the poor coordination and management of compensation.

Reporter