Due to the woes
continuing to plague the economy, the seaport performance in Ba Ria-Vung
Tau Province and the country as a whole was poor last year. However,
four new seaport projects are going to be put into operation in the
province this year, contributing to improving the seaport
infrastructure, and may make some headway this year.
Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province
Department of Transport has announced that four more seaport projects,
namely Vung Tau Petro, Cai Mep-Thi Vai International, SSIT and the first
phase of Gemalink, will be put into operation this year.
The seaports will have a
combined design capacity of about 20-25 million tons of cargo. The
southern coast province in 2013 looks to achieve cargo throughput of
around 50.7 million tons and serve roughly 125,000 passengers at local
seaports. It will spend more than VND4.2 trillion developing the new
seaports this year, up some 10% against last year.
Ba Ria-Vung Tau is now
preparing to invest in 15 seaport projects at a total cost of about
VND56 trillion, with 10 in Thi Vai-Cai Mep area, four in Long Son-Vung
Tau area and one on Con Dao Island.
Ryoichi Matsuno, general
director of Thi Vai International Port Co., told Ba Ria-Vung Tau
newspaper that work on the international seaport would start in the
second quarter and would be completed two years later. "Although the
project is being completed during the tough times, we are still
optimistic about the port's potential,?he said. "We believe that when
the port is put into use, the economy will also recover.?
Matsuno added that ports
around the Thi Vai-Cai Mep area are mainly container ports. So, when the
Thi Vai seaport opens, it will be the only big port with various
activities, including loading steel products. This is really an
advantage.
There are 26 operational
seaport projects in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province with a total capacity of
more than 76 million tons annually. However, these ports handled just
50.46 million tons of cargo in 2012, equivalent to some 94% of the 2011
figure. The Thi Vai-Cai Mep complex has 14 projects and the Vung
Tau-Long Son area has 11 projects. Ben Dam Port on Con Dao Island serves
as a general port, including seafood handling.
Cargo throughput at the
ports was 50.46 million tons in 2012, down 6% compared to 2011.
Container throughput increased to 7.58 million tons (6.42 million tons
in 2011) but transit container throughput decreased by 30%. The number
of international passengers going to the country through the ports was
put at more than 82,000 people last year, or 88% of the number recorded
in 2011.
Overcoming difficulties
Since container seaports
around the Cai Mep-Thi Vai area have been put into operation,
particularly after successfully accommodating big vessels, some firms
started to bring their mother vessels to the area to load containers.
Especially, 16 new maritime routes have been set up to ship containers
from Vietnam to Europe and the U.S. However, due to the ongoing economic
crisis, over the past year, some foreign shipping firms have cut at
least seven direct routes from Europe and the U.S. to the Cai-Mep Thi
Vai area. The remaining nine routes are enough to create fierce price
competition among seaports. This makes the prices of stevedoring
services go down strongly, costing less than US$40 per 20-foot
container, impacting business operation of ports, especially newcomers.
In addition to the
economic turbulence, the slow relocation of seaports along the Saigon
River and Ba Son Shipyard has a negative impact on seaports?activities
of Ba Ria-Vung Tau. By this time, only Saigon New Port had completed the
relocation while others had removed a part. Due to the delay, many
container ships still flock to ports in HCMC, instead of those in the
Cai Mep-Thi Vai area, which have had infrastructure ready to welcome the
relocated seaports from HCMC as well as container ships. So there is a
big gap between supply and demand here.
Talking with Ba Ria-Vung
Tau newspaper, Nguyen Xuan Ky, deputy general director of Ca Mep
International Seaport, said that to handle the long-lasting
difficulties, enterprises must proactively carry out proper solutions,
limiting mistakes. "Besides, the Government should quickly approve
suggestions or master plans as well as issue new breakthrough policies
to better the performance of the port complex,?he said. Some of the
policies are reducing maritime charges, setting up a seaport authority
and creating favorable conditions for the transportation of exports from
the northern and central regions.
Meanwhile, Nguyen Thu
Trang, deputy general manager of Baria Serece Joint Stock Company, the
operator of Phu My deepwater port, said the port only handled 4.7
million tons of containerized goods, down 14.5% compared with the
initial target. To solve the problem, the port has boosted marketing,
reduced some spending and applied advanced technology. "It is forecast
that the economic difficulty still exists in 2013, so port operators
need to improve marketing, reduce expenditures and improve customer
care,?she said.
To enable the Southern
Focal Economic Hub to play a real part in the country's development and
to help localities in the hub develop, it is necessary for the Ministry
of Transport to boost the relocation of seaports along the Saigon River.
The ministry also needs to issue a new policy to connect localities in
the region in seaport cooperation. This not only helps bring benefits
for each locality but also avoids overlapping and weak performance of
each locality.
Saigon Times Group
No comments:
Post a Comment