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Seaports becoming storehouses
Thousands of containers of imports are still piled up at ports in HCM City despite efforts by HCM City localities, port developers and central management agencies to clear them.
Deputy Head of the Vietnam National Maritime Bureau (Vinamarine) Hoang Tat Thang yesterday had a working session with representatives of the Ministry of Industry and Trade at Cat Lai, Ben Nghe and Saigon ports on solutions to clear the imports stuck at the ports. This was the third working session between relevant ministries and port developers.
Thang said that if relevant ministries cannot settle the problem, they may have to ask for the instruction of the Prime Minister.
All seaports in the south these days are full of containers of imports. Enterprises that imported commodities have been delaying clearing the imports because they cannot borrow money from banks to make payments. Commercial banks have been asked to tighten credit in order to help fight inflation.
With all southern ports full of uncleared imports, ship owners have announced that more commodities, which are now in transit ports, are waiting to ‘land in’ Vietnam.
Port developers say that imports have been arriving in large quantities these days as enterprises want to import commodities in big quantities in order to sell domestically after June.
The Prime Minister asked enterprises not to raise sale prices of key products until June 30, 2008.
According to Tran Khanh Hoang, Head of the Marketing Division of Tan Cang Sai Gon, the port developer, imports arriving at the port have increased by nearly 46% over the same period of last year.
The situation has been worsened by the poor infrastructure, which cannot meet the high demand for goods transport. Currently, 25-tonne and heavier trucks are forbidden from crossing Tan Thuan Bridge.
Cat Lai port’s representative said that the volume of goods stuck at the port at this moment is double that of the last year, estimated at 19,000 TEU (1 TEU is equal to a 20 feet container). These are commodities imported by nearly 60 companies, mostly steel, livestock feed, paper, chemicals and food. Of this amount, over 5,700 containers have been kept at ports for more than 15 days.
Viet Steel, for example, now has 500 containers of scrap steel uncleared at the port. When Cat Lai port’s representative asked the company to clear the imports soon, it said that it does not have depot for the imports, adding that it will pay a high fee to store the imports at the port for some more days.
Port developers say that they have been taking a lot of measures to get importers to clear the commodities as soon as possible, but the measures have not helped.
Hoang said that several importers have decided to give up the imports. Statistics show that in 2007, there were some 20 unclaimed containers, while the figure has risen to 70 already this year.
Thang from Vinamarine also fears that more importers will give up their imports if they cannot borrow money from banks.
VNN
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