Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) has plans to hire consultants to prepare the feasibility study of the Long Thanh Airport public - private partnership (PPP) project.

According to sources, the corporation could have chosen to receive funding from the Japan International Cooperation Agency for a $6.9 million, 15-month study but it concluded that a more "comprehensive" study is needed.

This announcement comes after Vietnam's National Assembly (NA) approved in June the Government's investment plan for the project.

Located 40 km northeast of Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat Airport, the new facilities are are designed to have capacity for 100 million passengers and five million tonnes of cargo after three phases of the project are completed in 2050. The first stage of the project is scheduled to be operational by 2023. When completed it will be able to serve 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of goods a year.

The total project investment is estimated at US$15.8 billion. The first phase of the international airport would require about US$4.76 billion, to be provided by the Government of Vietnma, ODA loans and other sources.

Several investors have already shown interest in the PPP airport project including Aéroports de Paris, Samsung, South Korea's Incheon Airport and a group of Japanese corporations.

The new facilities aims to alleviate traffic congestion at Vietnam's largest airport, Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat Airport, which in 2013 reached its designed capacity of 20 million passengers a year. The Long Thanh Airport is expected to become an important international airport for the country and an aviation hub in the region.

We have recently reported on several airport PPP projects in the Asia - Pacific region:

• Redevelopment of Ninoy Aquino International Aiport (NAIA) PPP project - Philippines
• Port Hedland International Airport lease - Australia
• Airport package A & package B - Philippines
• Sendai Airport concession - Japan