Recently, Vietnam officially started construction of a 60-kilometer-long highway in the northern part of the country, marking significant progress in the historic $59 billion North-South Highway project. The US$430 million section will stretch north from Chilang district to the Chinese border town of Dongdang, next to the "Friendship Pass" gate that symbolizes the friendship between the two countries.

Once completed, this project will come to a successful conclusion. The project, conceived in 2016 and launched in 2019, aims to replace the famous Route 1 - the "joyless street" - with a modern highway. The expressway will have four lanes in the mountainous section, and some sections will be expanded to ten lanes in the 32 cities it connects.

According to reports, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Zheng said that the new road section will effectively connect the Red River Delta and northern mountainous areas with China and the wider ASEAN region. The entire expressway is 2,110 kilometers long and passes through 32 provinces, starting from the Lang Son Mountains in the north to the Ca Mau Delta in the south.

Vietnam.com pointed out that this project will greatly improve the transportation conditions of 62% of the country's population and connect 16 airports, three-quarters of seaports and 75% of special economic zones. The project was broken down into sub-projects and different procurement methods were used.

The project boasts zero delays to date. To ensure on-time completion, the Vietnam Project Management Committee sometimes even requires contractors to implement three shifts. The northern section to China is being carried out using a build-operate-transfer model, with government investment accounting for 45% of the total investment and the remainder being borne by a consortium of investors from Deoca Group in Ho Chi Minh City.Editor/Zhao E