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Work starts on City seaport
Construction begins on new suburban location for Sai Gon Port
Work has started on a major seaport in HCM City’s suburban district of Nha Be that will replace the 145-year-old Sai Gon Port.
Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai attended the opening ceremony for the 100ha Sai Gon-Hiep Phuoc Port on the Soai Rap River.
Hai said the port, part of a master plan to develop the southern key economic zone and HCM City up to 2020, would boost the region’s transport infrastructure.
"Its three main targets are to meet the requirement to remove inner-city ports along the Sai Gon River to the outskirts for urban development; the demand to develop new ports to handle increasing goods from the region; and the need for a new port cluster," Hai said.
The first phase of the project covering nearly 54ha in Hiep Phuoc Commune was scheduled to be completed by 2011, said Le Cong Minh, general director of Sai Gon Port.
The port will have three wharves, each 800m long that will replace the existing Nha Rong and Khanh Hoi ports in District 4 and be able to handle 8.7 million tonnes of cargo a year.
The new port will be able to receive vessels of up to 50,000 tonnes.
By 2010, the first 200m of wharf is expected to be put into service and will handle cargo shipments from Nha Rong and Khanh Hoi ports, which are working to capacity.
In the VND2,735-trillion (US$160.9 million) project’s second phase from 2011-2014, a 1,000m wharf will be built to receive around 10 million tonnes of cargo a year.
Navigational problems
The removal of the port to the suburb is partly due to the fact that the Long Tau River route leading up to its two constituent Khanh Hoi and Nha Rong ports is only 8.5m deep, which is difficult for large vessels to navigate.
In addition, the main roads responsible for transporting goods from the port, such as Nguyen Tat Thanh, Ton Duc Thang and Nguyen Huu Canh, are often congested.
Under the seaport master plan along the Sai Gon River approved by the Prime Minister in 2005, five ports will be relocated prior to 2010, including the Sai Gon, Tan Cang, Rau Qua, Tan Thuan Dong ports and the Ba Son Shipyard.
VietNamNet, VietNamNews
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