The 2.1-km bridge is the city’s longest, linking South Saigon new urban town with the eastern districts of 2 and Thu Duc. It will help reduce vehicular traffic through the city center and provide a shortcut for travel between the southeast and southwest.

Nguyen Thanh Thai, general director of Phu My Bridge Corporation (PMC), the project owner, said the bridge would be opened for traffic on September 1, four months earlier than planned.

Phu My will be the first cable-stayed bridge across the Saigon River in HCMC, the city’s transport department said on Tuesday.

The six-lane bridge began construction in March 2007 with a total cost of nearly US$130 million.

The foreign consortium BBBH, comprising Germany’s Bilfinger Berger and Australia’s Baulderstone Hornibrook, is the engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) contractor.

Hugh Bishop, a board member of BBBH, said the consortium selected France’s Freyssinet and 620 Chau Thoi Concrete Corporation of Vietnam as main subcontractors because these companies had experiences in building the cable-stayed My Thuan Bridge in Tien Giang Province, the first such bridge of Vietnam.

In this BOT (build-operate-transfer) project, Thai of PMC told the Daily, the company has the right to bridge toll collection for 26 years.

After completing all components of the bridge in September and three approach roads to the bridge by the end of this year, vehicles from the Mekong Delta will be able to cross the bridge to Hanoi Highway to travel to southeastern provinces.

The bridge will also ease traffic on both sides of the Saigon River such as districts 4, 7, 2, 9, Nha Be and Binh Chanh, and link up other major roads such as HCMC-Trung Luong and HCMC-Long Thanh-Dau Giay expressways.
PMC is also developer of the approach roads and related components under the build-transfer (BT) form.

The company is carrying out three road projects with a combined length of 11 km, including an elevated road in South Saigon area, a 1.6-km road section starting from Nguyen Van Linh Boulevard in District 7 and a 9-km road from Rach Chiec Bridge in District 2.

The total cost of these roads plus seven small bridges along the road and a traffic junction amounts to VND1.44 trillion (US$84.7 million). These items will be completed by the end of December and handed over to the city in early 2010.

Facts and figures about Phu My Bridge

- Developer: Phu My Bridge Corporation (PMC)

- Start date of construction: March 2007

- Date of completion: December 2009 (scheduled), September 2009 (contractor-committed)

- Contractor: BBBH consortium (60% owned by Germany’s Bilfinger Berger and 40% by Australia’s Balderstone Hornibrook)

- Main subcontractors: France’s Freyssinet and Vietnam’s 620 Chau Thoi Concrete Corporation

- Consultant and project manager: Australia’s Maunsell

- Design checker: UK-based Tony Gee and Partners

- Designers: France’s Arcadis (main bridge), Australia’s Cardno (approach structures).

- Traffic flow: about 100,000 vehicles a day.

- Vertical clearance: 45 meters

- Total contract cost: US$105 million.