Vietnam's marine strategy

Vietnam and the “smart approach” in the East Sea

Journalist Hoang Huong and Mr. Nguyen Chu Hoi

Q: Located on the major maritime and aviation route between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, the East Sea is very important. Vietnam has a very significant geopolitical position in the East Sea. Is there any future for Vietnam to develop a marine economy in the area?

Nguyen Chu Hoi: Vietnam has grounds to strive to become a strong nation from sea. But we are still far behind in marine economics. Many marine-based sectors, notably oil and gas industry, are actually mining of nonrenewable resources. This is not sustainable development. There are some issues we have to solve:

The first is green growth, including a green sea economy. The natural resources and valuable marine landscapes as Ha Long Bay must be preserved. We must restructure the marine economy towards reviewing and 'greening' the oil industry, shipping, fisheries, tourism and accompanying services. 

Secondly, from now to 2020 oil and gas will be still a major industry. We will not limit it to the plots near the coast but will go further and deeper. We have to form an ocean industry, in which everything will be industrialized, including tourism. We cannot exploit naturewithout re-investment. 

The third is that we cannot go out to sea via coracles, but with modern vessels. 

In summary, there are six issues that we must act on to have a sustainable marine economy: preserving marine natural resources; protecting sea landscape; developing green coastal urban areas, preserving marine environment; and developing renewable marine energy.

Currently we only pay attention to the 66 inhabited islands. What about thousands of other islands where there are no suitable conditions for people to live, which are unspoiled islands, and are very precious to the world? We can do business there based on conservation of nature and development of services based on conservation of the sea and islands.

Q: We have just said that Vietnam has up to 116 seaports, but areas such as the Mekong Delta do not have any seaport. It means that there are many excessive seaports, which have not been used effectively, the place which really needs seaports does not have a single one. Is this a problem that we must solve right now?

Mr. Tran Ngoc Chinh: Vietnam’s seaports were built on the ask-give mechanism. All coastal provinces asked for the government’s approval for the construction of seaports. But this is an ineffective and scattered way of investment.

Quang Tri province wants to build a seaport in Cua Viet while Quang Binh province want to have a seaport in Hon La. Other localities want to build seaports in Vung Ang, Chan May, Tien Sa and Dung Quat ... then which seaport will be the international port for the East-West route? It’s extremely wasteful.

Nguyen Chu Hoi: Vietnam has several areas that have good conditions for building deep-water ports. Only Cam Ranh is a perfect one, and even Van Phong Bay is not an ideal deep-sea port in terms of nature.

According to our planning, we have about 100 locations that are appropriate to build river and seaports. Each five or three years, we draw up a new seaport development plan, with the same places that had been mentioned in the previous plans. 

The current way of doing this cannot fully explore the full capabilities of seaports (less than 40% on average or even 32%). Many seaports have almost no operations since they were built and many seaports operate at low capacity. It is a big waste.

Policymakers have to change their perspective. We have to move to the sea from seaports. But we have to seriously review our seaports and our planning. For example, of the 100 seaports we plan to build to 2020, we have to anticipate how many tons of goods, from which sources that will go through these ports...

Secondly, seaports like 'mouths'. We cannot only pay attention to the depth of seaports but neglect food for these ‘mouths’ – goods. In seaport planning, we have to define the sources of goods for these ports.

Overall, in the central region, the coast from Tien Sa - Da Nang to Vung Tau has advantages for developing large seaports, but the 'weakness here' is the shortage of goods. In this case, to turn 'weakness' into 'advantage' and turn ‘advantage’ into 'benefits', investment in urban development in the central region associated with deep-water sea ports and coastal economic zones is the key to create local demand and local sources of goods. Along with the construction of deepwater ports are surrounding towns, tourism development, and factories to invest. It is best if foreign investment account for 90% of this.

For example, Dung Quat seaport 'eats' the products from the surrounding industrial zones, and from the Dung Quat coastal economic zone. From an arid region, thanks to the perspective of economic planning makers, that weakness has become dominant.