Taipei - Vietnam plans to begin building a high-speed railway linking Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in 2010, Vietnam's railway chief said Tuesday at a symposium in Taipei. "Construction will start in 2010, and the high-speed railway will begin operation in 2020," Vu Xuan Hong, chairman of the Vietnam Railway Adminstration, said at the High Speed Railway in Asia Symposium.
"Eventually, Vietnam's high-speed rail will link up with Asia's regional railway network," he added.
About 500 railway experts from Asia and Europe attended the two-day symposium, which ended Tuesday, to discuss problems concerning high-speed railways and the prospects for building high-speed railways in Asia.
The stretch between Vietnam's two largest cities is still in the planning stages.
"So far, we only have the master plan for railway system development approved by the prime minister and have yet to map out the investment report for the high-speed one, let alone contracts," said Nguyen Trong Nghia, secretary to the general director of the Vietnam Railway Corp.
The project is under negotiation between the governments of Vietnam and Japan, which is to provide the technology for the railway, Nghia said in an interview in Vietnam.
At least 425 million dollars is earmarked for the project, according to the Vietnam Railway Corp's master plan posted on its website.
Hong said in Taipei than the high-speed line from the capital in the north to booming Vietnam's industrial centre in the south was being planned to update the country's rail system.
"The Vietnamese railway system dates back to the French colonial days, and the trains travel on a narrow gauge at 40 kilometres per hour," he said.
Currently, passengers have to sit on a bumpy train for two to three days to travel from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. The high-speed rail could reduce the travel time to under 10 hours in a narrow country where railways play an important role in transporting goods and passengers.
High-speed rail refers to trains that run faster than 200 kilometres per hour, but in most countries that have high-speed rail, the trains run at speeds of 250 to 300 kilometres per hour.
Asian countries that have high-speed railways are Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China.
