The Standing Committee of the National Assembly has approved a VND15 trillion (US$645 million) budget for four railway upgrading and 10 road projects, according to the government portal.
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Specifically, a total of VND7 trillion (US$300 million) will be allocated to four railway upgrading projects, including VND1.95 trillion (US$84 million) for reinforcement of 100 weak bridges on the Hanoi - Ho Chi Minh City route.
Another VND1.8 trillion (US$77 million) will be spent on reinforcing tunnels and opening new stations on the route section between Vinh and Nha Trang cities.
The route section from Hanoi to Vinh city, Nghe An province will be upgraded for VND1.4 trillion (US$60 million), with the aim of reinforcing the current infrastructure. Similar upgrades will be applied on the route from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh City at an estimated cost of VND1.85 trillion (US$79 million).
The committee also allocated VND8 trillion (US$343 million) for 10 road projects across the country.
The number of train passengers decreased by 15% from 11.2 million in 2010 to 9.5 million in 2017, according to Nguyen Thi Luyen, head of the Economic Institutional Department under the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM).
Total freight carriage also dropped 29 percent from 7.8 million tons to 5.5 million tons in the same period, Luyen added.
In recent years, investment in railways accounts for just 2-3% of transportation sector's total budget, Vu Van Minh, chairman of Vietnam Railways informed at the National Assembly in June.
Vietnam currently has over 3,000 kilometers of railway tracks, with none of them reaching high-speed. All Vietnamese trains run on diesel, while Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and China have electric railway systems.
