Hanoi - Vietnam's proposal to build a 56-billion-dollar high-speed railway from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City may be more than the country can afford, economists and National Assembly deputies said Friday.The government submitted its plan for the railway, to be built with Japanese technical assistance, to the National Assembly on Thursday.The railway would stretch 1,570 kilometres and cut the travel time between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City from at least 36 hours today to under 10 hours. Foreign development assistance and loans from the World Bank would be needed to finance the project. Critics say the debt would be too large to recoup at realistic ticket prices in a low- to middle-income country like Vietnam.
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