Vietnam’s ports set the pace for development

A significant increase in both box volumes and port projects has been the result of Vietnam's rise as a manufacturing centre but landside developments need to keep pace, Cai Mep International Terminal (CMIT) commercial officer Malcolm Gregory tells Port Strategy.

The 1.1 million teu annual capacity terminal is now under construction and opening in January 2011. However, Mr Gregory outlines the issue by explaining that an influx of barges could keep the terminal from operating at peak efficiency for the mainline ships if the road projects are not developed in time.
 

One of five new deep water terminals in the Thi Vai - Cai Mep port complex, the large new CMIT terminal is situated just 15 nautical miles from the main sailing routes, benefits from 600m of quay length and six STS cranes, giving shipping a possible 30 or more crane moves per hour.
 

However, because of the lack of modern roads, around 90% cargo is moved by barge, and Mr Gregory points out that supporting just four mainline vessel calls may require as many as 55 barge calls per week. This translates into available capacity for mainline vessels being reduced by 45% of its optimum.
 

“Some people think there is overcapacity in the system, but if you are looking at deepwater access, it is simply not the case,” says Mr Gregory, adding that infrastructure “is improving but probably not fast enough”, citing the problems with Route 51, which, although having four lanes at present, suffers from congestion arriving from at least one lane being “chocablock with motorcycles and scooters”.

However, he does say that "A number of critical infrastructure projects are either underway or planned, and these are essential if we are to maximize the capacity of the new deep water terminals to handle main line mother vessels," although he is a little less happy about the number of projects with an undetermined completion date.
 

He adds that it would be a real loss if the lack of modern infrastructure were to dampen Vietnam's future economic growth prospects – especially given that the country’s box volumes grew by 2% in 2009 when container throughput declined by over 10% world-wide.
(Source:www.portstrategy.com)