Xinhua General News Service

June 20, 2006 Tuesday 3:00 AM EST

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Economic

LENGTH: 270 words

HEADLINE: Vietnam considers spending 31 bln USD building high-speed
railways

DATELINE: HANOI

BODY:

Vietnam is planning to pour 31 billion U.S. dollars into constructing four
high-speed rail routes in the 2010-2015 period, the country's sole railway
operator told Xinhua on Tuesday.

"We have reported to the National Assembly (the country's highest
legislative body) about our plan on building the four routes of Hanoi-Hai
Phong, Hanoi-Vinh, Ho Chi Minh City-Vung Tau, and Ho Chi Minh City-Nha
Trang. The railways will allow trains to run at a maximum speed of 300
km," said the office secretariat of the Vietnam Railways Corporation.

The planned routes with a total length of some 900 km, linking either
Hanoi capital or southern Ho Chi Minh City with the major cities in the
northern, central and southern regions, will have the
international-standard width of 1.435 m, instead of one meter like most of
Vietnam's existing railways.

"In my opinion, the project seems rather unfeasible, since 31 billion
dollars is a huge sum of money. Meanwhile, investment in railways usually
comes from internal sources," a senior official of the state-owned
corporation said, declining to be named.

Under a railway development plan approved by the government, Vietnam's
railway sector is to meet 25-30 percent of cargo transport demand, and
20-25 percent of passenger transport demand in the country in 2020. The
current respective figures are 4 percent and 9 percent, the official said.

The sector transported over 8.7 million tons of cargoes and nearly 12.8
million passengers in 2005. Meanwhile, its total revenues rose 3.1 percent
to over 4,730 billion VND (nearly 297.5 million dollars).

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