Vietnam scraps $56B bullet train project

Vietnamese legislators rejected a proposed bullet train over its $56 billion cost - the assembly's first rejection of a major proposal submitted by the all-powerful Communist government, the Associated Press reports.

The nearly 500-member assembly typically acts as a rubber stamp but
voted over the weekend to deny plans for the high-speed rail project.

The
$56 billion investment would have built a 975-mile (1,570-kilometer)
track linking the capital Hanoi and the southern commercial hub of Ho
Chi Minh City by 2035.

A train trip that now takes 30 hours would
have been cut to about six hours.

But ordinary Vietnamese could
not afford the fares, and construction would equal about 50 percent of
the country’s gross domestic product, said Nguyen Minh Thuyet, a
lawmaker from northern Lang Son province.

"I’m very glad that
deputies have expressed their position," said Thuyet. "The move helped
the country avoid an expected huge debt for an inefficient project."

He
said it was the first time the assembly rejected a major proposal by
powerful Communist leaders.

Senior economist Pham Chi Lan called
the plan economically unsound.

"This project is too risky and too
luxurious for Vietnam where we have many other things to do with
agriculture, education, electricity and other transport projects," she
said.

Some assembly members argued the bullet train would help
promote tourism.

Lan said the project would not serve the
country’s majority where about 70 percent still live in rural areas.