Vietnam may spend 26 bln USD building North-South high-speed railway

Construction of Vietnam’s North-South high-speed railway, which allows passengers to travel between capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in about eight hours, will cost about 26 billion U.S. dollars, local media reported on Wednesday.

Citing analysis by experts from Germany and the Netherlands, the Ministry of Planning and Investment said that with the span of thousands of kilometers, a running speed of 200 kilometers per hour would be cost-effective, the Vietnam News daily reported.

Previously, the Ministry of Transport proposed a plan on constructing a new high-speed railway, which allows trains to run at 320 kilometers per hour, with the tentative investment of some 58.7 billion U.S. dollars over 30 years from 2020 to 2050.

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