It is hard for me to say how we can find capital resources, but I hope the participants today will discuss such issue based on experiences from similar cities, especially those in regional countries. Thank you.
Dr.Chinh
As I have mentioned earlier, we think that the role of a transport fund and a public transport support fund will be very significant to initially solve the problems of public transport. As for the taxes on 2-wheel vehicles, based on our studies, we have found that many other countries have introduced the principle that those who cause damages must pay. In HCMC, the 2 million motorcycles have been causing much pollution, but they are not under any pollution test and they pay nothing at all for such. Two years ago, the TUPWS proposed to introduce environment tax, but at that time such an issue was not fully understood and the City People Council did not approve it. In a recent project, a similar proposal was pointed out. Apart from other taxes, some charges should be applied against motorcycles and who are causing many problems.
But I think, in the short term, as the Vietnamese people have not been used to such taxes, those taxes should be collected in form of pollution test fees against vehicles. But according to our calculation, the income from such a source will be only some tens billion dong per year. It means that other financial sources are of no less importance, namely ODA, soft loans and other particular methods that have been applied to the construction of the South Saigon Highway. We should not and cannot rely on a single financial source.
And it is very hard to immediately reduce the use and ownership of personally vehicles, but it requires for active propaganda campaigns to convince the people that it is significant and necessary to use public transport. Such a job depends on the mass media, especially television.
Prof.Ieda
If I can add one thing to the suggestions from those people, I think we should focus more on the big advantage of the mass transit system in the urban area. The biggest point is that the mass transit system can increase or improve the value of the land. And it is very useful to make investors feel it very attractive to construct building or commercial centers and so on in that area. And if you can get money from these investors, it will be very helpful. There are no big investors in Vietnam, but there are many in surrounding countries, like China, Hong Kong and Japan, who will come to make their investment once they feel it attractive.
Because the time is limited, I would like to open our discussion to the floor. You can raise any questions to one of these people or to all of them.
Prof.Dr.Nguyen Viet Yen, Hanoi Transport University's Branch in HCMC.
For the question of why we do not use mass transit system, but prefer personal modes, I would like to express my ideas.
