Gov’t okays Sapa airport building

The Lao Cai provincial People’s Committee was assigned to work with the Ministry of Transport and relevant agencies to invest and build the airport in line with regulations. 

Earlier, the People’s Committee of Lao Cai, the Viet Nam’s mountainous northwest province asked the PM to approve in principle a project to develop a new airport worth more than US$254.5 million near Sapa township, one of Viet Nam’s top tourist attractions.

In the proposal, the provincial authority stated that the project can be financed by the State budget and private funds under public-private partnerships through build-operate-transfer contracts.

More than US$133 million from the central State budget should be allocated to develop the airport, including runways, taxiways and aprons, as well as arterial roads to and from the airport.

Private companies will invest 30 percent, or US$77 million in a public-private-partnership model where they will operate the airport to recover investment before handling it back to the state.

Lao Cai Province will invest 15 percent, or US$39 million, in land acquisition and relocation, while the Vietnam Air Traffic Management Corporation (VATM) will invest the remaining 2 percent, US$5 million, in air traffic control facilities at the airport.

The airport will be located in Cam Con Commune of Bao Yen District on some 371 hectares of land, roughly 100 kilometers away from the frontier township of Sapa and will be used for both civilian and military purposes.

Under the aviation transport development planning by 2020 with a vision towards 2030, the Sapa airport will meet 4C standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization and serve 3 million passengers per year./.

By Khanh Phuong