The decision was approved at an An Giang People’s Council meeting on May 21.
Under the approved plan, the Tho Chu Airport project in Tho Chau Special Zone has been classified by the Ministry of National Defence as an urgent public investment project, exempting it from investment policy approval and environmental impact assessment procedures.
Project documents showed the investor had committed to paying for replacement forest planting and that the project aligned with An Giang Province’s 2021-2030 development plan.
The Ministry of Construction recently added Tho Chu Airport to the national airport development master plan.
The airport is planned to meet ICAO 4C standards and cover more than 234 hectares. It is designed to handle around 20,000 passengers annually by 2030, with capacity projected to rise to about 1 million passengers a year by 2050.
Total investment is estimated at VND 28.8 trillion (USD 1.1 billion).
The provincial council also approved the conversion of more than 2.4 hectares of protected forest for the Duong Dong 2 reservoir project in Phu Quoc, which is expected to serve APEC 2027 infrastructure needs.
Another proposal allowing the conversion of more than 3,700 square metres of protected forest for a 110kV transmission line project in northern Phu Quoc Island was also passed.
