Vietnam: The South Korean manufacturer and the Vietnamese corporation THACO have signed a strategic partnership agreement, which provides for domestic production of locomotives, metro trains and later HSR trains under the local brand name.
In addition, the partners intend to manufacture equipment and signalling systems as well as organise technical and repair services and infrastructure management.
Under the agreement, THACO will build in Ho Chi Minh City a 786-hectare industrial complex with workshops, a service centre and test tracks. The localisation of production is expected to reduce rolling stock life cycle costs from 20 to 30%.
The partnership is signed in the light of the Vietnamese government’s far-reaching plans for increasing domestic production of rolling stock. In particular, the national operator VNR has previously announced that the infrastructure development between 2030 and 2050 would require 261 locomotives, 1,000 passenger coaches, 7,000 freight cars, 1,500 urban rail cars and also 1,100 cars for high-speed trains. It is worth noting that the country has recently approved the construction of the first North–South HSR line with a design speed of 350 km/h. To implement the project, the government is considering such public finance mechanisms as subsidies and preferential loans.
Passenger coaches and freight cars are currently assembled and overhauled by Vietnamese VNR and Gia Lam Train, a local private railway company. However, there are not yet domestically manufactured locomotives and multiple units in the country. Today, Vietnam operates 258 locomotives, 980 passenger coaches and 4,300 wagons, but the majority of the fleet needs to be decommissioned within a decade.
