Following feedback from transport businesses, the Transport Ministry has decided to reduce fees on a type of vehicle on the HCMC-Trung Luong expressway and suspend the plan to collect fees on a National Highway 1A section.

Vehicles at the Cho Dem fee collection station on the HCMC-Trung Luong expressway, Photo: Tuoi Tre

Yesterday, the HCMC Goods Transport Association said it had received a reply from the Ministry explaining that the agency has asked the Finance Ministry to cut the fee on vehicles over 18 tons and 40’’ container trucks by 25-30 percent from the current rate of VND8,000 (US$ per kilometer.

Although the ministry did not agree with the association’s proposal that the fee on such vehicles should be reduced by 50 percent, this reduction will still please many transporters since it will help ease the financial difficulties they are suffering, said Luong Hoang Trung, deputy chairman of the association.

As reported earlier, the association had asked the ministry for a reduction of 50 percent on the fee rate, saying that a large quantity of cargo transporters that carry goods from HCMC to Mekong Delta provinces and vice versa cannot afford the fee.

Under the original fee plan, if a truck travels 40 km on the expressway to deliver goods, it would have to pay a total VND640,000 for the round trip said Luong Hoang Trung, deputy chairman of the association.

Such an expense is too high since, according to calculations by most cargo transporters, a delivery trip within a radius of 100 km can only earn the transporter VND300,000-400,000.

Thus, without goods owners agreeing to an increase of 20% in transport fees for their goods, the transporters would not even earn enough money to pay the expressway fee, let alone profit.

A car driver pays traffic fee at a station. When the raod maintenance fee is applied, all traffic fee stations on national highways whose revenue belongs to the State’s budget will be removed. (Photo: Tuoi Tre)

Now, along with agreeing to a reduction in the fee, the ministry also said it has suspended the plan to collect fees on a stretch of National Highway 1A that runs parallel to the HCMC-Trung Luong expressway until further notice.

The road maintenance fee will be collected from June 1 to feed the Road Maintenance Fund that has been set up under Decree 18 of the Government, and when the fee is applied, all traffic fee stations on national highways whose revenue belongs to the State’s budget will be removed to avoid overlapping fees, Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper quoted Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Hong Truong as explaining.

He also said the ministry would report to the Prime Minister about this issue for further instructions.

Many transporters had earlier lamented that they would suffer from overlapping fees if they have to pay both the road maintenance fee and the fee on National Highway 1A.

Meanwhile, Trung said his association will continue asking for a fee reduction for other types of vehicles on the expressway and will maintain its opinion that no fee should be collected on the national highway section.

Source: Tuoi Tre