In the early 1990s, recognizing the limitations of Saigon ports, the Government of Vietnam began to pay attention to building a new deep-water port to serve the Southern and Southern Central regions. Thi Vai – Cai Mep was chosen because it has a depth, located near the convergence production area in the Southeast, and is located on an international maritime route from Hong Kong to Singapore.
1. Introduction about Cai Mep – Thi Vai port cluster
Thi Vai – Cai Mep port is a deep seaport cluster in Ba Ria – Vung Tau, at the mouth of Thi Vai river and Cai Mep river. Cai Mep International Port (Phu My town) is designed to accommodate container ships with a tonnage of up to 80,000 DWT with a throughput capacity of 600,000-700,000 TEU per year. The berth length is 600 m with a total area of up to 48 hectares. Thi Vai Port is also capable of receiving general cargo ships with a capacity of up to 75,000 DWT. The port throughput is 1.6-2 million tons per year. The total area of the port is 27 hectares.
According to the Vietnam Maritime Bureau, the volume of goods through the seaports in Cai Mep – Thi Vai area is expected to account for at least 50% of the total volume of goods through seaports nationwide. Cai Mep – Thi Vai international port is considered as a modern deep-water transshipment port, invested synchronously, with the most favorable geographical position in Southeast Asia to receive container ships of up to 100,000 DWT, with a throughput capacity of 600,000-700,000 TEU / year.
Thi Vai port is capable of receiving ships up to 75,000 DWT, the port throughput is 1.6-2 million tons / year.
Accompanying the above two ports are the factory system, auxiliary works and port operation equipment.
2. Cai Mep – Thi Vai, potential land!
According to studies, about 28% of the world’s containerized cargo is handled. In 2016, the total container volume through the Southeastern seaport group (group 5) was 8.35 million TEUs, accounting for 62.73% of the whole country, of which the seaports in Ho Chi Minh City alone passed 5 , 72 million TEUs.
Because the port of Ho Chi Minh City only receives the largest size of ships with a capacity of more than 3,000 TEU, most of the region’s import and export containers still have to transit via transshipment ports in the regional countries. area. This makes each TEU of our country’s export containers cost an additional US $ 200 to pay for loading and unloading at transshipment ports of other countries.
If an international transshipment center is established in Cai Mep area, then gathering Vietnamese export goods to go far away from the market, at least about 29% of the volume of import and export containers of the seaport group. 5 (equivalent to about 2.8-3.0 million TEU in 2020 and 5 – 5.9 million TEU in 2030) will not need to be transshipped through Singapore and Hongkong ports.
In the long-term future, if synchronously developing the center of inland transshipment at Cai Mep – Thi Vai, gathering export goods of regions and regions throughout the country to put on mother ships, the prospect of Cai Mep – Thi Vai becomes An international transit center is workable.
Not only solve the problem of far sea shipping of Vietnam, the formation of transport routes from Cai Mep to Europe and the US is also a basis to attract international transshipment and gradually bring Cai Mep – Thi Fabric joins the network of regional and international transshipment ports. This is a huge benefit not only of the Southeast region’s economy but also at the national level.