Vietnam Opens Hai Van TunnelPrime minister Phan Van Khai officially opened on 5th June, 2005 the Hai Van tunnel, which links the central province of Thua Thien Hue to the north and Da Nang City to the south on national highway 1A. Built 1,172 m above sea level, the 6,274 m-long tunnel is part of a two-lane 12,182 m highway, which also encompasses eight bridges 1,635 m in length and 4,273 m of highway. The tunnel, which took nearly five years to complete, includes the main tunnel connected to its parallel evacuation tunnel with 15 cross passages, a complex 1.9 km ventilation system including three electrostatic precipitators, six 2,500 mm-diameter fans in the electrostatic precipitator chambers, two 3,000 mm-diameter supply fans and two 3,000 mm-diameter exhaust fan panels and auxiliary facilities in the ventilation building, thirty-two 1,530 mm-diameter jet fans in the main tunnel, and a ventilation control system (5 visibility meters, 2 CO meters, 5 anemometers and 2 traffic counters) and a ventilation building connected by an inclined shaft. These equipment have been supplied, installed and commissioned by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Itochu. Read E-News Weekly 20/2003 & 4/2002. Visit www.itochu.co.jp/main/index_e.htmlWork started on 1st October, 2000 using the new Austrian tunnelling method from two drives. The north drive was built by Hazama and CIENCO 6 and the south section by Song Da and Dong Ah, under the supervision of Nippon Koei, Louis Berger and TEDI of Vietnam. Read E-News Weekly 30/2002. Visit www.n-koei.co.jp/english and www.louisberger.comThe tunnel will help substantially improve traffic conditions over the dangerous Hai Van Pass, shortening the travel distance from 22 km to 12 km with a safe, effective and convenient infrastructure.Some 2,500 vehicles use the pass each day, and the tunnel is expected to accommodate from 7,000 to 8,000 vehicles a day by 2007. The tunnel will pave the way for the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) traffic corridor, which will run from central Vietnam, through central Laos, to northeastern Thailand, and will help boost trade and tourism along the trans-Asia highway. The Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC) began to support the tunnel project in 1997, providing it with total loans of USD175.4 million. Click vn/11. Visit http://haivan.cup.com/home.html 24/05. Vietnamese and Japanese leaders pose for a photo during the opening ceremony of the Hai Van tunnel.