To facilitate travel to the tourist destinations in the Dalat - Nha Trang - Ho Chi Minh City tri-area, Vietnam is well on its way to completing a new motorway, reported authorities June 13. 
Scheduled to see traffic in December, the new route will span the Khanh Vinh district in Khanh Hoa province to Lac Duong district in Lam Dong province, linking the mountainous city Dalat with Nha Trang coastal tourism city.

With the new route, travelers would negotiate only 140km, instead of the present 240km to go between Dalat and Nha Trang. In addition, the new route also helps avoid a 20km section of dangerous motorway traversing the Krong-Pha (or Ngoan Muc) mountain pass.

About a thousand of tons of explosives in total are to be used to dislodge and move some 4 million cu. m. of stone, according to the construction management board who began the work last April.

The route is 80 percent complete, and after seeing its first traffic would be officially inaugurated April 2006, said Mr. Nguyen Van Dam, director of the 515 Construction Company under the Cienco 5 Construction Corporation.

Local authorities along the new route have begun planning high-technology agricultural parks and ecological tourist sites. (Reported by Mai Vong – Translated by Minh Phat)

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