Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has expected that the ports cluster Cai Mep – Thi Vai will develop on par with the region in 2030
The advantages of the biggest deep-water seaport in Vietnam
According to the planning developing Vietnam’s seaport system, it was determined that Ba Ria - Vung Tau seaport is a national general seaport, also an international gateway (Class IA) and playing the role as an international transshipment port.
Over several years, Ba Ria - Vung Tau always maintains the potential of being one of the top 5 provinces that have the highest contribution to State GDP and Budget revenue. To continue standing at this role and maintaining this rank, the province had determined to focus on pillar economic sectors including industry, the seaport system, tourism, and high-tech agriculture. In particular, the key issues for the next stage are the deployment and development of the seaport system, networking promotion between HCMC, Dong Nai, and other provinces in the region to leverage the industrial growth and goods import-export…
Ba Ria - Vung Tau currently has 69 projects that are planned to focus on 02 navigations: Vung Tau – Thi Vai and Dinh river (Only the Cai Mep – Thi Vai area has 35 seaports, 22 of them has been deployed). At this moment, there are 48/69 seaport projects that have been deployed with a total capacity roughly of 141.5 billion tons/year. The total berth length is about 14km, particularly the berths of the Cai Mep - Thi Vai area are about 12km with the capacity approximately of 130 mil tons/year.
With the advantages of a deep-water seaport, Cai Mep – Thi Vai has become the first seaport of Vietnam and the 19th seaport in the world that are caple of receiving the super-large container ship, Margrethe Maersk with a tonnage of over 214,000 tons and the carrying capacity of over 18,300 TEUs. This is one of the biggest container ships in the world today. Only in 2020, Cai Mep – Thi Vai had 113 mil tons of goods, accounting for 16% of total national cargo and 34% of total container cargo going through Vietnam’s seaports.
Despite many development potentials, there are some shortages and limitations, for example: The unfulfilled conditions and incompletion of infrastructure; there is a lack of modern, multi-modal and professional logistics centers; lacking a financial or banking system and the full customs clearance procedures; there has been a missing of a breakthrough policy frame and adequate regulations for maritime economic development, transshipment promotion, and resource mobilization… These limits need to fix soon to develop Cai Mep – Thi Vai seaport in the next period.
Make Cai Mep – Thi Vai become the international modern seaport cluster
On Mar 20th, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the delegation had a visit to inspect 3 ports along the deep-water seaport Cai Mep – Thi Vai route including: Gemalink port of Gemadept JSC., CMIT (Cai Mep International Terminal Co. Ltd), and TCIT (Tan Cang – Cai Mep International Terminal Co. Ltd). This time, Prime Minister had a meeting with the leaders of Ba Ria – Vung Tau to listen to the report presented on the socialeconomic situation in the province and particularly at the seaport cluster.
On Mar 20th, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the delegation had a visit to inspect 3 ports along the deep-water seaport Cai Mep - Thi Vai
Report to Prime Minister at the meeting about the difficulties and problems of the seaport cluster, Mr Nguyen Van Tho, President of Ba Ria - Vung Tau’s People Committee said: “Ba Ria - Vung Tau connects different provinces in the key economic area of the South and Southwest regions only through the national road 51. However, this road is often overload and congested with traffic, affecting the goods transport through the Cai Mep – Thi Vai seaport. In particular, the investment in the infrastructure that helps to link all ports is the very important issue”.
Refers to the problems in infrastructure connection, the Gemalink leader suggested that government should have the solution for the synchronous deployment of transport connecting system to the deep-water seaport, linking the provincial roads and the national highway and Phuoc An bridge. Also, it needs to have the railway soon to connect the seaport cluster with the national railway and neighbors including Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. Especially, we should promptly make use of the water areas at wharf areas where irrigation works have not been built to create barge berths for loading and unloading the import-export containers, and help to link Cai Mep with ICD river ports in HCMC and the Mekong Delta region.
Many projects for transport connecting in this province, especially from the industrial zones like Binh Duong, Dong Nai, HCMC or Binh Phuoc, Tay Ninh… to Cai Mep - Thi Vai have been regulated for many years, however, the implementation has been very slow. This is a big obstacle impeding the potentials of the South economic key zone and the role of Cai Mep – Thi Vai - a world strategic seaport. Understanding that situation, Prime Minister had given some prompt directions. Prime Minister required the ministries and related sectors to promote the upgrading of infrastructure in Cai Mep – Thi Vai area; including the dredging of the channel from buoy 0 to Cai Mep container terminal to reach the minimum depth of -15m for the travel of large ships; reviewing all wharves and seaports, organizing inland waterway routes to particularly connect to Mekong Delta; also operating modern logistics systems; Early starting the investment in Bien Hoa highway (Dong Nai) – Vung Tau; investigating the Bien Hoa – Cai Mep railway project…
Along with the study on building a cargo distribution center from Long Thanh International Airport to Cai Mep – Thi Vai seaport; it is necessary to research on an establishment of a free trade zone in Cai Mep; sooner forming the inspection centers located in this area to reduce the portion of goods that have to move from Cai Mep to HCMC for customs procedures…
Regarding the investment in logistics infrastructure, Prime Minister directed to give the priority to build Cai Mep Ha logistics center in order to promote seaport services. Besides, authorities need to consider building a cargo distribution center connecting Long Thanh International Airport and this seaport cluster for the aim of combining the transport modals between airfreight and waterway shipment.
