Accordingly, Japan will back Vietnam's master plan for development of a sustainable transportation system to run to 2020 and then to 2030.

VITRANSS2 will cover the formulation of a strategic move to 2030, a master plan for sustainable transport development to 2020 and a priority investment programme for the 2011-2015 period, as well as a feasible study into the building the North-South high speed railway project and the transfer of technology to Vietnamese counterparts.

The study will begin in November this year and take 22 months to complete, according to the JICA.

Japan is Vietnam's largest ODA donor with total ODA commitment to date reaching US$11 billion, accounting for 30 percent of the international community's commitments to Vietnam.