HANOI: More than six years since its opening, a VND40-trillion (US$1.75 billion) deep-river port complex in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau is still struggling to reach its designed capacity.
Statistics from the province’s transport department showed that a total of 1.16 million TEUs were handled at Cai Mep-Thi Vai last year, or just 17 percent of its capacity, even after freight growth averaged 20 percent a year, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported on Thursday.
Although all its seven ports are designed to handle container ships of up to 85,000 DWT, just a few of them receive enough large vessels , Tran Van Danh, chief of the province’s customs office, was quoted as saying.
The others are now handling small boats carrying farm produce, iron and steel products, and one of them was almost neglected, Danh said.
Cai Mep-Thi Vai has also failed its mission of becoming a key transshipment port for long distance ships.
Initially 16 vessels left the ports for the US and Europe every week, but by 2012 shipping lines had reduced them to eight ships, the newspaper reported.
One of the two busiest ports within the complex, CMIT currently sees three ships sailing to the US every week.
Nguyen Xuan Ky, deputy CEO of the port, said local goods destined for the distant markets have yet to be shipped through Vietnamese ports.
Instead, they are often sent to transshipment ports in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan through feeder ships.
Shipping activity at Port Qasim on February 11
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