The Hanoi Transport Department talks with investors from Dubaion the setting up of smart car parks in the city on August 5. — VNS Photo

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — The Hanoi Transport Department spoke with investors from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on August 5, on the setting up of smart car parks in the city.

The Dubai investors led by Pham Binh Dam, Vietnamese ambassador included the UAE-based fund Vault Investment Foundation (Vault) and other Dubai investors and Foundation Engineering and Underground Construction (FECON) as Vault's local partner.

The Dubai investors found an increasing demand for car parks in Ha Noi, and added that the city needed to build smart car parks to meet the demand and to fit in with the local development.

The smart system would employ electronic chips as the controlling system, flexible payment technologies by phone, bank cards, and bus cards.

Ambassador Pham Binh Dam said that he hoped Ha Noi would take advantage of the technology from Dubai, which has been helping the UAE in its rapid growth in the past few years.

Meanwhile, Pham Hoang Tuan, the department deputy director, said the two current smart parking lots and one being developed could only meet 10 to 15 per cent of the demand. He suggested building the parks under the Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) and the Public, Private Partnership (PPP) plan in which the Dubai investors would provide investment capital and technologies, operate it for 10 to 15 years, and then transfer it to the city.

The investors would build outdoor parking lots with lightweight structures and easy to expand first, and then use the income to build underground parking lots in the future to serve the larger demand.

In late July, HCM City accepted the smart park technology of Vault. The southern city also introduced four places for the investment research of the parks.

Currently, the UAE has invested in such parking lots in 19 countries in the world, including the most recent major projects in China with a capacity for 45,000 cars.

According to the Foreign Investment Department under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, as of April, 2015, UAE was the 38th largest investor of the total 103 countries and territories investing in Viet Nam. Currently, it has invested in nine projects, with total registered capital of US$135.8 million. — VNS