More than VND 10,430 billion of work already completed on Package 3 of Long Thành airport remains unpaid. According to a Ministry of Construction report sent to the Prime Minister and Standing Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Gia Túc, published by Thanh Niên on October 24, preparing files, acceptance and payment is the biggest bottleneck of the final stretch.Thanh Niên
The headline progress figure sounds reassuring. Package 3, with Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) as investor, has reached about VND 74,284.38 billion of VND 86,348.6 billion in output value, or 86.03%.Thanh Niên But the unfinished part sits in exactly the facilities passengers will walk through first. The question for anyone following infrastructure policy is where the 2026 target for Phase 1 is actually stuck, and which knot to untie first.
The unfinished work is at the center
Of 12 construction packages under way, eight are expected to finish in December, including the two runways, the terminal apron, the fuel supply system and the wastewater facilities. The ministry describes the remaining four as very unlikely to finish in December.Thanh Niên According to ACV, these are also the four packages on the project's critical path.FireAnt
Package 5.10, passenger terminal. It stands at 83.05% of contract value, up 5.68% from the September 5 report. What remains is mostly architectural finishing and equipment: only 38 of 53 checked-baggage screening machines are done, aircraft docking guidance units are at 73 of 130 sets, and ground power units at 36 of 68. Of 51 integrated load-test scenarios, 16 are still not approved, and the mechanical-electrical, fire protection and air-conditioning systems cannot yet be test-run.Thanh Niên
Package 4.8, airport roads and technical infrastructure. It stands at 80.60%, with about 43 km of grade-3 roads and 8 km of main roads still to build. The site has mobilized only 1,440 of the 2,515 workers committed.Thanh Niên Supplying the remaining 100,000 tonnes of asphalt concrete is also difficult because stone and bitumen are short.Tiền Phong
Package 7.8, cargo terminal No. 1. It has reached only 47.04%, up just 3.3% from the previous period. The automated warehouse system must be ordered from a foreign supplier and will arrive on site in February 2027 at the earliest, while the contract calls for completion in October 2026.Thanh Niên
Package 11.5, car park. This is the lowest, at 42.93% of contract value and up only 1.63% from the previous period. The report says the Coteccons, CC1 and Fecon joint venture has failed to mobilize enough workers for a long time.Thanh Niên
The money is there; the paperwork is not
The ministry does not place the main cause in a lack of funds at ACV. Besides contractors not providing the committed workers and technical staff, the biggest bottleneck is the preparation and submission of internal files and the acceptance and payment procedures. Unpaid completed work on Package 3 has exceeded VND 10,430 billion.Thanh Niên Tiền Phong reports that this figure comes from ACV's own report, and that the heaviest obstacle is payment for equipment items in Package 5.10, which leaves contractors working at a slow pace.Tiền Phong
On October 21, ACV said it had made seven payments totaling about VND 6,300 billion over roughly five months, and had set aside enough funds to keep paying for work that meets the conditions.FireAnt Side by side, the unpaid backlog is more than 1.6 times what ACV paid in about five months.
The two statements do not conflict once you notice the phrase "meets the conditions". Work is paid only when acceptance files are complete. For equipment it is harder still: the ministry asks ACV to also handle adjustments of materials and equipment against the approved design.Tiền Phong Put differently, the money sits with the investor, the finished work sits on site, and the missing link between them is the file.
The report also describes the knock-on chain: slow cash flow directly hurts contractors' ability to mobilize resources, leading to slow-paced construction. It does not split the backlog by package or contractor, so this article does not infer that split either.
Money does not explain everything
Looking only at the VND 10,430 billion, a reader might conclude that paying up will put the schedule back on track. The report does not support such a neat conclusion, because at least two other causes are independent of cash flow.
The first is skilled labor. At the passenger terminal, the Vietur joint venture lacks high-skill welders: the tunnel area has only 17 welders and 5 welding robots, while the Energy Center has 4 welders for more than 640 specialized welds.Thanh Niên Faster payment may help contractors hire, but high-skill welders cannot appear within a few weeks.
The second is imported equipment and materials. The cargo terminal's automated warehouse is late because of the foreign supplier's delivery schedule, not because of money. Asphalt concrete for Package 4.8 is short because stone and bitumen are scarce, so the ministry asked the Đồng Nai city authorities to prioritize supply.Thanh Niên
The figures from different parties also do not match. For Package 4.8, ACV says the joint venture is mobilizing more than 2,000 workers and nearly 200 machines,FireAnt above the 1,440 workers in the ministry's report. The two numbers may have been taken at different times, and no source explains the gap.
The available data therefore supports an ordered picture. Paperwork and payment is the largest knot in the ministry's assessment and affects every package. Skilled labor is a separate knot for the passenger terminal and the car park. Imported equipment is a separate knot for the cargo terminal, and clearing the payments will not bring it sooner.
Who is waiting
For ACV shareholders, the question is when Long Thành starts generating operating revenue. Under the National Assembly policy that Standing Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Gia Túc reiterated, Phase 1 must be completed and put into operation in 2026.Thanh Niên ACV has also floated partial operation of the cargo terminal and bringing part of the car park into use in the initial phase.FireAnt That implies that even if the airport opens in 2026, initial capacity is likely to be incomplete.
For contractor shareholders, the names most clearly in the report are Coteccons (CTD), CC1 and Fecon (FCN) on the car park. At the passenger terminal, the Vietur joint venture is led by IC Ictas. Since the report does not give each contractor's unpaid share, nobody yet knows how much completed work each firm has not turned into cash. What is clearer is that the shape of the risk has changed: the ministry asks ACV to firmly handle or reallocate work from parties that fail their labor commitments,Thanh Niên and ACV says it has already handed some work to other contractors.FireAnt For a slow contractor the risk is not only late cash but the loss of part of the contract volume.
What we do not know, and the milestones that will answer it
The biggest unknown is the exact completion date of Package 3. The ministry has asked the investor to set a precise completion date soon, alongside resolving payment issues for contractors.Tiền Phong That date has not been announced.
Three signals are worth watching over the coming weeks:
- ACV announces a completion date for Package 3 and shows the VND 10,430 billion-plus backlog shrinking.
- The 16 remaining integrated load-test scenarios at the terminal are approved, since the terminal cannot operate while its mechanical-electrical and fire protection systems are untested.
- Q3 financial statements of listed contractors, in receivables and contract assets.
The thesis is straightforward: acceptance paperwork is the largest bottleneck, but not the only one. If the backlog falls fast while labor at the terminal and car park stays short, the bottleneck has fully moved to the contractors and reallocation of work becomes more likely. If the backlog stays flat, the explanation that construction slowed because payment was late remains intact, and the year-end opening will depend most on how fast ACV and contractors complete the acceptance files.