Forty-three Chinese experts working on Hanoi’s first metro line (the Cat Linh-Ha Dong railway) have received permits to enter Vietnam, but they will be under medical quarantine before resuming work, VnExpress reported.

A train of the Cat Linh-Ha Dong metro line in Hanoi. Photo: Giang Huy

The 43 experts will remain isolated in a hotel away from crowded areas as requested by the Hanoi People’s Committee, the National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control said March 5.

At the end of January 2019, more than 100 Chinese experts returned to China for the Lunar New Year holiday, but most of them have not been able to reenter Vietnam because the Chinese government has forbidden its citizens to leave the country since the novel coronavirus outbreak.

All flights between the two countries have been suspended.

The Chinese director of the project, Tang Hong, who has official passport and was the first to return to Vietnam last month, is being in madatory quarantine.

A 20-day trial run of the metro line has been delayed as other Chinese experts are popular passport bearers and were denied visas under the anti-Covid-19 rule. Therefore, Vietnam's Ministry of Transport requested the National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control to facilitate their visa granting, so as to avoid further delay for the project.

The Cat Linh-Ha Dong metro line runs 13 kilometers from Cat Linh in downtown Dong Da District to Yen Nghia in Ha Dong district.

Work on it began in 2011 and was originally scheduled for completion in 2013, but loan disbursement issues with China that were only resolved in December 2017 and other issues stalled it for years.

Construction was completed in December 2019, and the original cost of US$553 million spiked to more than US$868 million.