Work starts on major port terminal in southern Vietnam
31-MAY-2008 Intellasia | Saigon Times Daily page 1
May 31, 2008 - 7:00:00 AM
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Cai Mep International Terminal Co., Ltd (CMIT) yesterday broke ground for a terminal able to handle 160,000 dwt container vessels in Thi Vai-Cai Mep port in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau.
The US$250 million terminal will cover 48 hectares, including 36 hectares in Phuoc Hoa in Tan Thanh District, have a 600-metre berth, and handle 1.1 million TEUs per year.
CMIT is a joint venture between HCM City's Saigon Port, Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines) and Denmark's APM Terminals Corp.
Bui Van Trung, chair of CMIT, said at the ceremony yesterday that the new terminal would come on stream in late 2010 and could serve 160,000Dvyr container vessels. HCM City's ports can now accommodate vessels of 30,000 dwt.
CMIT is among the key projects that will contribute to making Vinalines a leading maritime corporation in the region and a key player in the national strategy, he said.
He said that with the prestige, experiences, and capabilities of the three shareholders, this will be an important container terminal for the province and the key southern economic zone. Once in commercial operations, the terminal will need 500-600 staff.
CMIT inked a construction deal with an alliance between South Korea's POSCO EC and SAMWHAN Corp to build the terminal.
Speaking at the ceremony, a leader of POSCO EC said the company would develop the project on schedule.
The country's trade with the rest of the world has in recent years been growing tremendously. But the current port and maritime infrastructure is insufficient, so investments in new, more modern and capable facilities are needed to support Vietnam and its future commercial role in the world economy, according to CMIT.
The terminal will offer its customers state-of-the-art IT and container handling equipment, and a safe, secure and speedy system of handling vessels and cargo.
Global operators such as APM Terminals have in recent months been answering the Vietnamese government's call for foreign investments in the country's infrastructure as part of the country's drive towards modernisation.
"The availability of port handling capacity and particularly within the containerised segmentis today in very short supply. The current operators are struggling to cope with record high import volumes and the effects are beginning to show. Waiting time for vessels is going up and delays are unavoidable. Shippers suffer, customers overseas suffer and in the end Vietnam will suffer if the situation is not addressed quickly and efficiently," said Martin Gaard Christiansen, vice president of APM Terminals.
He said the new capacity was required urgently and his company with its CMIT project played an important role in ensuring Vietnam could sustain its future growth targets.
Tran Minh Sanh, chair of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, said the terminal would help promote production and foreign trade in the province and the southern focal economic zone, and create jobs and stable income for thousands of people.
The province's industrial parks (IPs) are home to a lot of foreign investors to build factories. Most of the IPs are conveniently linked by waterway and roadway systems. Thus, building a deepwater seaport adjacent to IPs offers the most advantageous condition to entice investors.
CMIT's project comes on the back of several other Vietnamese port developments, which have been integral to the government's initiative to spur national economic growth.
One of 30 key national projects under a master plan for sea ports is the Vinalines-PetroVietnam JV to build the US$637 million Ben Dinh-Sao Mai port complex, which will largely comprise oil and gas facilities in southern Vietnam's coastal Ba Ria-Vung Tau province.
Another major project in the pipeline is the estimated US$1.6 billion Lach Huyen port in the northern city of Hai Phong. Vinalines is planning an international partnership for that project and Belgium's port of Zeebrugge is expected to undertake construction. Vinalines has also been given the go-ahead to build a US$.185 million port complex in central Vietnam's Khanh Hoa Province.
The project will see the development of the Van Phong port in Khanh Hoa's Van Phong Economic Zone into an international port facility, with two berths each able to accommodate vessels of up to 9,000 TEUs.
Initial construction was scheduled to begin this year while completion, projected for 2010, will see the port's handling capacity rise to 700,000 tonnes of cargo shipments per year.
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