First, on the public transport development as a whole and with particular attention to the mass transit, we should not only look into the HCMC itself, but the HCMC metropolitan area, because the urban area of HCMC has been expanding very rapidly beyond the boundary.
The second issue is the establishment of institutional framework for implementation of mass transit, with particular regard to land acquisition and resettlement issues. In planning stage, this is an aspect that is often neglected, but become very serious in implementation stages.
The third is the conduction of feasibility study for priority corridors.
2.4. Panel Discussion
2.4.1. Presentation by Mr.Huynh Ngoc Sy, Vice Director of Transport and Urban Public Works Service, HCMC People's Committee
Firstly, on behalf of the leaders of HCMC Transport and Urban Public Works Service, I would like to thank the organs with initiative of holding this seminar as well as all the participants in this seminar; those have been interested in the transport situation in HCMC.
HCMC with an area of 2,094km2 and population of more than 5 million has a special geographical location lying between Mekong River Delta, the biggest rice basket in Vietnam and the North East South where there is a concentration of industrial zones with high growth rate and many rare and precious industrial crops in the country.
HCMC, a crucial core of the key economic zone in the South has developed in diversification of tourism, culture, banking, trade, finance, science and technology and industry. These conditions have facilitated HCMC to become a multi-functional center of socio-economic ties and a lever to spur the regional economic development in accordance with modernization and industrialization.
In line with the nationwide trend, HCMC has achieved great and comprehensive developments over the past years and it has remained a relatively high GDP growth. In addition, the urban physiognomy has changed a lot with continued demographic increase as well as expanded and rapid urbanization that have exceeded GDP growth and investment portion in technical infrastructure, especially transport one. These chain impacts have strongly affected to the transport and the quality of urban environment.
The current traffic situation is going on complexly and critically and it is envisaged to encounter great challenges, for instance, most of urban roads are in a danger of overload and the rationale among transport modes is still controversial. Public passenger transport that is profoundly social area has been decreased rapidly over the past years and it has been able to undertake only less than 5% of urban transport demand.
