The area for building Long Thanh Airport in Dong Nai Province is seen from above, August 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Phuoc Tuan.

Dong Nai Province authorities formally handed over nearly 2,600 hectares of land on Tuesday to the Southern Airport Authority for construction of the Long Thanh airport.

It includes 1,800 hectares required for the first phase of the airport, whose construction is scheduled to begin in early 2021, while the rest is for the second phase.

Cao Tien Dung, chairman of the southern province, said 1,200 hectares had belonged to the Dong Nai Rubber Corporation Company Limited and the remaining area to over 1,000 families.

Six hundred of the latter have received compensation of VND1.29 trillion ($55.73 million) and the rest are expected to be paid this month.

The province hopes to hand over the rest of the 5,000 ha of land required by the second quarter of 2021.

The estimated cost of the first phase is VND109.1 trillion.

In the first phase, the airport will have one runway and one terminal with a capacity of 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of cargo a year.

The first phase feasibility study by the State Appraisal Council is being submitted to the government for approval so that construction can start in early 2021, Deputy Minister of Transport Le Anh Tuan said.

When the airport is completed by 2050 at an estimated cost of VND336.63 trillion, it would be able to handle 100 million passengers and five million tons of cargo annually.

The airport is expected to share the load of Tan Son Nhat in the neighboring HCMC, which has been handling more passengers than its designed capacity for years.

Source: VnExpress.