Public investment in Vietnam has a familiar rhythm: money gets allocated in January, sits around through the summer, then gets rushed out the door in December. Da Nang is trying to break that habit, and the numbers suggest it's partly working.

By the end of August, the city had disbursed 11,351 billion dong of a 17,191.9-billion-dong public investment plan, or 66.03%, placing it fifth among localities nationwide, Bao Dau Thau reported on September 14. The target is 100% by year's end.

Where the money is going

According to Bao Dau Thau, the projects driving the spending include:

  • Lien Chieu port's shared infrastructure (3,426 billion dong), opened in late March after 1,200 days of work, plus a 1,203-billion-dong coastal road to the port that's nearly finished.
  • A link from the Western Ring Road to the La Son–Tuy Loan expressway (1,467 billion dong), started in January and due in July 2028.
  • The QL14B interchange with the Da Nang–Quang Ngai expressway (537 billion dong), whose works package was 46.3% done and on schedule.
  • The Highway 14D upgrade (4,518 billion dong), whose main design-and-build package started in June. (We covered its truck ban.)
  • Two late-August groundbreakings: the Hoa Xuan interchange (1,571 billion dong) and a 2,723-billion-dong World Bank-backed adaptive development project.
  • Six boarding schools in border communes (1,806.7 billion dong), ready for the new school year in early September.

Who's ahead and who's behind

Among the city's project boards as of August 31, priority infrastructure was at 76.16% and transport and agriculture at 75.88%. The civil, industrial and technical infrastructure board lagged at 59.87%, below the city average.

The choke point is still land. On the Western Ring Road link alone, the contractor was waiting on 32 compensation files, 26 in Ba Na commune and 6 in Lien Chieu ward.

Party Secretary Le Ngoc Quang told project units below the city average to review every project and funding source. The steering committee's own conclusion was blunt: disbursement depends on procedures, site clearance, construction, acceptance and payment paperwork, not just on having money.

The follow-up

Three weeks later, the city launched its "green lane" to cut processing times on key projects by half, Saigon Giai Phong reported. The rest of the plan includes moving money away from projects that are slow "for subjective reasons," which in plain terms means projects stalled by people rather than weather.

Fast spending isn't automatically good spending. But for residents waiting on a road, a bridge or a school, a city that pays contractors on time and moves money from stuck projects to working ones is better than the December rush.

Sources

This story was compiled by the Da Nang Voice news desk from the published sources listed above. Facts, figures and quotes are attributed to those sources; Da Nang Voice did not conduct interviews for it unless the text says so. Corrections are dated and noted at the top of the story. Read our corrections policy. Spotted an error? Tell us.