Logistics economy in Cai Mep - Thi Vai area : A new direction

The Southern Key Economic Zone has been expected to be a motive force for the development of the country thanks to its existing regional transport network and industrial parks. However, for many years, these regions have geographically connected only, not functionally connected. Therefore, it is necessary to have a coordination and functional allocation for the idea of turning BR-VT seaport to be the largest transshipment center of the country to boost up the regional development.

BR-VT FROM A VIEW OF LOGISTICS ECONOMY

Although sea port business in BR-VT area has not been as smooth as expected for the past few years, according to economy experts, BR-VT should think about building port for vessels of 80,000-120,000 tons, which enables to play the role and do functions of an international transshipment port, serving both the Eastern and the Southwestern and forming a unified economic zone – a modern economic corridor of city and ports.

And the Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has reminded BR-VT of making a good use of potential of the deep-water seaport, which has been considered as remarkable advantages of BR-VT compared to those of other cities and provinces. That is the effective exploitation of the Group 5 seaport, especially the Cai Mep-Thi Vai area. The connection will bring effectiveness, cut cost and make good use of loading-unloading capacity not only for port operators, for Cai Mep-Thi Vai area in particular but also for the Vietnam economy in general, increasing competitive ability of Vietnam’s seaports.

Currently, BR-VT has 52 port projects, among which there are 18 ports in operation with total capacity of 34 million tons of cargo/year, 11 port projects under constructions, 23 port in preparation for investments. Most of these deep-water ports are in the river area of Thi Vai-Cai Mep, which is convenient for the development of port services, sea transport and logistics services.

CHOOSING A NEW DIRECTION

According to the Vietnam Maritime Administration, the amount of cargo-through-port in the region is estimated to account for 50% of the total cargo. And Cai Mep-Thi Vai international port is considered a modern transshipment deep-water port, which is synchronously invested and has the most geographical advantages in the Southeast Asia and enables to receive container vessels of over 100,000DWT with the capacity through-port of 600,000-700,000 TEU/year. Thi Vai port enables to receive vessels of up to 75,000 DWT, its capacity is 1.6-2 million tons/year. Together with the two ports is the system of workshops, assisting buildings, and port-operating equipments. To increase their connectivity, it is scheduled that all ports in the Saigon river will be moved to the area after 2015 and the area of Thi Vai river will become a busy logistics economic zone.

To increase the value of Cai Mep-Thi Vai, besides a good infrastructure, it is a vital element to have good experience of port operating and good prestige to attract cargo from international port operators. Therefore, the Ministry of Transport has approved to lease two container terminals in form of bidding for 30 years.

Particularly, the first tender package includes two container terminals of 600m for container vessels of 100,000 DWT and the system of warehouse and workshop that enables to receive 700,000 TEU/year. In the second tender package, tenant leases Thi Vai general cargo terminal at fixed payment of USD 130.5 million and will make another payment, which will be changed annually, besides the fixed one. This is a package to exploit two berths of total 600m long for vessels of 50,000 tons and a synchronous system of ware houses and workshop, which enable to have the cargo-through-port of 1.6 -2 million tons/year. The bid will take place at the end of this year for investor with the highest bid and the best exploitation method. After many year of “open-door”, Vietnam sea port sector has been able to called for investment from large global enterprises as SP-PSA from Singapore, CMIT from Denmark and SSA/Carrix from the U.S…

COORDINATION AND DEVELOP

The target is the international transshipment port with large-scale investment should attract shippers, and international liners to be a big transshipment point of the region by quality and service costs. The choice for port operator of Cai Mep-Thi Vai International Port by bidding form is a premise to end monopoly, to increase competitive ability, to improve service quality and to make a breakthrough for Vietnam sea ports. The Ministry of Transport allowed some foreign liners transporting export goods from Hai Phong, Quy Nhon, Danang, to transport to their mother vessels at Cai Mep-Thi Vai port system. This create a cargo flow from the North and the Central to Cai Mep-Thi Vai, which previously is transshipped at large transshipment ports in the world as Singapore, Hong kong and Malaysia. Export cargo from Cambodia has been transshipped to Cai Mep-Thi Vai, instead of being transshipped in Singapore. CMIT has weekly transshipped a large amount of transshipment cargo to Cambodia customers. According to sea port experts, thanks to its capacity, geographical location, distances to main transport routes, Cai Mep-Thi Vai port group can be used as a international transshipment port.

To build a successful a gateway port group and Cai Mep-Thi Vai International Transshipment port, there should be cooperation efforts from enterprises of seaport, liners, and from the Government. Especially, export-importers should estimate the reality to adjust their supply chains to make good use of an import-export gateway port group in the Southern Key Economic Zone. The success will be at hand if there is the coordination among management organizations, import-export enterprises.