VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of the seaports in the east of the southern region have been operating at a moderate level, others remain half done, causing a great waste of trillions of dong. This has been blamed on the unreasonable seaport system programming.

The Phu Huu International Port in district 9 still cannot be fully exploited since 2009 because of the lack of a road to the port.

Nguyen Xuan Hoang, Director of the Phu Huu Port JSC, said the company would share the same Nguyen Duy Trinh road with the Ha Tien 1 Cement Company which is now under the construction.

However, the road would not be suitable for container trucks, which means that the port would still lack a road to connect the industrial zones and industrial production bases with the port, from which the goods are shipped to other countries in the world.

When asked about Phu Huu, Nguyen Anh Tuan, Director of Portcoast, a port design and consultancy firm, said at the time when the project was put into consideration, the city did not think of expanding Nguyen Duy Trinh Road.

However, Tuan said, even if Nguyen Duy Trinh road is suitable to container trucks, Phu Huu Port still would not have a bright prospect, because it would have to compete with the Cat Lai port nearby.

Cat Lai, with the good infrastructure conditions, has been developed well by Tan Cang Saigon JSC. Meanwhile, Tuan does not think that shipping firms would change their habit and dock at Phu Huu port instead of the big and modern port like Cat Lai.

While the failure of the Cat Lai port has been blamed on the unreasonable planning of an enterprise, the local authorities should take responsibility for the problems at the Saigon – Hiep Phuoc port.

Ho Kim Lan, Secretary General of the Vietnam Port Association VPA, has noted that what is happening at Hiep Phuoc area shows the lack of the harmonization between the designed seaport and the supporting infrastructure items, which has led to the big waste of resources.

“No agency or unit has come forward and taken the responsibility for the big waste. However, I think this should be blamed on the local authorities, or the HCM City People’s Committee,” Lan said on Tuoi tre.

He went on to say that with the current problems, it is not very likely to see the relocation of the ports to be completed by 2015 as expected.

As a series of the big container ports in Cai Mep – Thi Vai area in Ba Ria – Vung Tau have been left unexploited, the ports’ developers have to lower the service fees and compete with each other fiercely. VPA has pointed out that the port system development program does not come in line with the other development programs.

According to Hai Quan newspaper, the Ba Ria – Vung Tau People’s Committee has asked the state management agencies not to grant new licenses to build more container ports in the provinces in the east of the southern region and in HCM City.

The local authorities believe that it’s now the time to gather strength to develop the newly built container ports in the province, namely the Cai Mep – Thi Vai, CMIT, SSIT, TCIT, SP-PSA and SITV, which have the capacity of 76.5 million tons per annum in total.

Manh Ha