The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee established of a company to manage and run the country’s first metro route Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien at a ceremony yesterday morning, announced the HCMC urban Railway Management Board.
HCMC Urban Railway No.1 Company Ltd will work with consultants to build a program on recruitment, technology transfer, organization apparatus, human resource, technical conditions for safe operation of the first metro route.
The state-owned enterprise has a chartered capital of VND14 billion (US$623,000) in the first phase of 2014-2017 and VND17 billion from 2018 later on. It will mainly provide subway transport services.
Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien metro project broke ground in August 2012 with a total capital of US$2.49 billion.
The 20 kilometer route goes through districts 1, 2, 9, Binh Thanh and Thuc Duc in HCMC and Di An district in the neighboring province of Binh Duong.
About 2.6 kilometers are designed underground with three stations and 17 kilometers above the ground with 11 stations.
The project is expected to be built by 2019 and open for service in the following year.
