A total of 13.3 trillion VND (830 million USD) will be poured into the construction of one of the biggest infrastructure projects to take place in the country's history.

The funding for the first phase of the project was approved when Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung recently signed off on a decision to give the go ahead to the road link that will stretch from the northern province of Cao Bang to southernmost Ca Mau province.

The PM decision featured changes and amendments that were needed for the first phase of the Ho Chi Minh Highway project.

The phase is scheduled to be completed in 2007 with some of the more difficult sections to be finished a year later.

The 1,690-km-long highway is the biggest transport infrastructure construction project in Viet Nam and runs through 30 provinces and cities.

Work began on the Ho Chi Minh Highway in 2000, upon completion in 2010, the highway will run parallel to the existing National Highway No. 1.

Observers believe that the new highway will prove to be crucial to the development of the country's more remote areas and hope it will narrow the socio-economic gap between rural and urban regions.