Ocean Shipping: A Vision to 2020 and 2030
With a strategic location in Asia, Vietnam is situated in one of the world’s most dynamic ocean shipping centers. Having a coastline of more than 3,260 kilometers, Vietnam holds the huge potential for development of ocean shipping and other sea-related services. Actually, Vietnam’s ocean shipping development is unproportional with the potential while facing numerous challenges. Thus, construction of an ocean shipping and related infrastructure development strategy is urgent and important for Vietnam to integrate into international maritime communities and improve Vietnamese maritime industry’s position in ocean shipping networks in Asia and the rest of the world.
Actual situation
There are 39 seaports in Vietnam, which are divided into six groups: group 1 includes ports located from Quang Ninh province to Ninh Binh province, group 2 (ports from Thanh Hoa province to Ha Tinh province), group 3) ports from Quang Binh province to Quang Ngai province, group 4 (ports from Binh Dinh province to Binh Thuan province, group 5 (ports in the southeastern region) and group 6 (ports in the Mekong Delta). These 39 ports are classified by function to include national general ports, local ports and ports for special use, the last one of which directly serve central industrial facilities. Cargo handled through ports for special use are normally crude oil, coal, ores and more.
The Vietnam Seaports Association reported that the amount of cargo handled in Vietnam-based seaports grew more than 20 percent per year from 2001-2008, the vast majority of which were handled in ports in Hai Phong, Quang Ninh and Ho Chi Minh City. While many seaports outside these three regions were working below their capacity, important seaports’ upgrading and construction did not keep in pace with actual development demands. This led to the overwork of major seaports.
There are a number of problems and challenges related to Vietnam’s seaport system. Most of major seaports in Vietnam are located near a big city and deep inside an estuary area that is usually affected by alluvial and tides, and therefore big ships cannot enter these ports for cargo loading and unloading. Urban areas’ narrowness makes it difficult and even impossible for expansion and development of port-based warehouses and holding yards and other port-related infrastructure projects.
Inadequate cargo loading/unloading equipment and warehouse systems deterred cargo handling. Logistics services are in general less developed, poor and less effective, which increased the cargo transport cost. The range of port and ocean shipping-related services remains poor. Vietnam does not have a Southeast Asian-standard entrepot port. The lack of such a port causes businesses exporting goods to West Europe and North America to have their exports transited in Singapore and or Malaysia. This increases the average transport cost by up to 20 percent.
Development orientations
Modernizing ocean shipping towards quality, safety, reasonable cost, environmental pollution reduction, energy efficiency and better competitiveness is a major target of the plan for Vietnam ocean shipping development to 2020 and a related vision 2030, which were approved by the Prime Minister through Decision 1601/QD-TTg dated October 15, 2009. It is stated in this plan that the maritime economy is the second most important among five marine economic sectors from now to 2020 and the most important among these five marine economic sectors beyond 2020. The plan also says that maritime will contribute to strengthening national defense and security.
Based on analyses of factors that influence port successes, seaport development trends in Asia Pacific region and Vietnam, the plan for Vietnam seaport development to 2020 and a related vision to 2030, Vietnam maritime and seaport development orientations focus on improvement of ocean shipping service quality, satisfaction of domestic ocean shipping demands, increasing the market share of import and export goods transport to 27-30 percent, and transporting cargo according to the order of foreign partners. Vietnamese ships are expected to transport 110-126 million tonnes of cargo in 2015, 215-260 tonnes of cargo in 2020 and an amount of goods in 2030 which is 1.5-2 times that in 2020. They are expected to transport five million passengers in 2015, 9-10 million passengers in 2020 and a number of passengers in 2030 that is 1.5 times that in 2020.
Modernization of Vietnamese ships and attaching importance to developing vessels for special use (container ships, oil tankers, vessels for transporting bulk cargo, and more) and vessels of a big tonnage are also part of the development orientations. A goal is for Vietnam to have ships with a total tonnage of 6-6.5 million DWT (dead weight tonne) in 2010, 8.5-9.5 million DWT in 2015 and 11.5-13.5 million DWT in 2020. Another target is to reduce the average age of Vietnamese ships to 12 years in 2020.
Vietnam wants to see its shipbuilding industry reaching Southeast Asian advanced standards and being capable of building cargo ships of up to 300,000DWT in addition to modern passenger, oilfield, rescue and maritime guarantee ships in 2020.
Apart from upgrading and making a full use of existing seaports, it is necessary to construct international entrepot ports and other international ports in key economic zones, and deep water ports specifically designed for loading and unloading container cargo, coal, ores and modern equipment.
Trade between Vietnam and foreign countries has been growing rapidly. This is a favorable condition for the Vietnamese ocean shipping industry to develop. Modernizing ocean shipping towards high quality, safety, reasonable cost, environmental pollution reduction, energy efficiency and competitiveness improvement is very important for the Vietnamese ocean shipping industry to take the initiative in integrating into international maritime communities and expand markets in Southeast Asia and the rest of the world./.
By MS Cao Ngoc Thanh, Ho Chi Minh City Research and Development Institute
Tags: Vietnam Ocean Shipping, Vietnam transportation
Posted by VBN on Jan 18 2010. Filed under Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
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