A steel artery is crossing the bustling and wilderness of the Mekong Delta, quietly stitching Ho Chi Minh City and the emerging aviation city together. China Vietnam engineering forces join hands to open the door to Vietnam's rail transit market, and a cross-border cooperation on technology output and infrastructure interconnection is quietly laying the groundwork on tropical land.

Project review approved

On August 20, 2026, the Construction Department of Ho Chi Minh City officially approved the joint venture between China Railway Sixth Engineering Group Co., Ltd. and Vietnam's Hung Nghiep Construction Consulting Co., Ltd. to be responsible for the feasibility study and FEED design review of the Shoutian to Longcheng railway project. The consortium will independently review and evaluate the project's technical proposal, construction technology, engineering investment, etc., and submit them to the competent department for approval after completion.

The project is designated by the Ho Chi Minh City Human Resources Committee to be responsible for feasibility study and FEED design by Da Guangming Real Estate, and will be constructed using a PPP public-private partnership model. On August 17, 2026, Daguangming Real Estate officially awarded the review contract to the Sino Vietnamese consortium.

Division of Project Tasks

The project division of labor is clear, with China Railway Sixth Institute as the leading entity, responsible for 80.9% of the workload; Vietnamese cooperative enterprises are responsible for the remaining 19.1% of the workload. China Railway Sixth Institute will lead the feasibility study report, front-end engineering design, total investment cost, and participate in survey and review; Vietnamese enterprises are responsible for survey and review, as well as related design and cost coordination work. This review adopts a total price contract model, and all work will be completed within 3 months.

Project Overview

It is reported that the total length of the Shoutian Longcheng Railway is 46.44 kilometers, connecting Shoutian Station and Jinyang Rolling Stock Depot, spanning Ho Chi Minh City and Tongna City. 18 stations are planned for the entire line, with 14 stations to be constructed in the first phase. The total investment of the project is about 5.1 billion US dollars, with a construction period from 2026 to 2030. The original plan was to start construction in July 2026. Keywords: China Railway Sixth Institute, Vietnam Railway, China Vietnam Infrastructure

This is another Chinese rail transit design company entering the Vietnamese market. Vietnam's rail transit construction is accelerating, actively introducing mature domestic technology teams to help upgrade local infrastructure. This project is another practical achievement of China Vietnam infrastructure connectivity under the the Belt and Road Initiative, which marks that China's rail transit technical standards continue to be deeply rooted in the Southeast Asian market, and inject new momentum into the high-quality regional joint construction of the the Belt and Road.Editor/Gong Ziwei