New Vietnam port heralds US service

The first deepwater container shipping terminal serving Vietnam's southern commercial hub has opened, allowing direct service to the United States to begin next week, a shipping firm said.

The APL Alexandrite on Friday became the first container vessel to call at the new Saigon Port-PSA facility on the Cai Mep River in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, the global container shipping firm APL said in a statement.

The port is southeast of Ho Chi Minh City.

APL said the vessel "was undertaking a trial voyage ahead of the beginning on June 4 of the industry's first direct container shipping service linking Vietnam and the west coast of North America".

Another APL ship, the Denver, is to depart from the new port on Thursday for Seattle, the statement said.

"With this port, the first direct shipping service from Vietnam to North America is possible," Vietnam's deputy transport minister Tran Doan Tho was quoted as saying in the Vietnam News on Saturday.

The US and Vietnam fought a war in the 1960s and early 1970s but economic ties have been restored and grown since the US lifted a trade embargo in 1994 and diplomatic relations were normalised a year later.

The Washington-based US-ASEAN Business Council, which represents more than 100 US companies, said on a visit to Vietnam recently that the US is on track to become the leading foreign direct investor in Vietnam within three years.

APL is unit of Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines, while the new port is a joint venture between Saigon Port, Vietnam National Shipping Lines and PSA Vietnam, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore's port operator PSA International. (AFP)

South Korea's STX Group said on Tuesday it would set up a manufacturing base in Vietnam, investing $150 million by 2015, to expand its offshore plant

South Korea's STX Group said on Tuesday it would set up a manufacturing base in Vietnam, investing $150 million by 2015, to expand its offshore plant business.

STX Group's three flagship companies, STX Corp., STX Shipbuilding Co. and STX Engine, will invest in the project, said a spokesman from the heavy industry and shipping-focused business group.

The group has won the Vietnamese government's approval to set up a unit, STX-VINA Heavy Industry, which will mostly focus on offshore plant construction. It is yet to be decided whether STX Group would build ships from the Vietnam unit, the spokesman added. (Reuters)

Several major seaports to be built in 2008

The Viet Nam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines) plans to carry out several major projects on building seaports in 2008.

First, construction of the Van Phong international transit seaport in the central province of Khanh Hoa and the Lach Huyen deep water port in the northern city of Hai Phong will start in the first quarter of this year.

Van Phong port will be a large port in Asia with a capacity of handling 300 million tonnes of goods per year and receiving 400,000-tonne ships.
Also in the first quarter, Vinalines will break ground for the construction of wharfs 2, 3, 4 of Cai Lan port in northern Quang Ninh province to receive 40,000 DWT ships, and five new wharfs for 20,000 DWT ships at Dinh Vu port in Hai Phong city.

Vinalines also plans to cooperate with US and Danish firms to build two more container wharfs at Cai Mep-Thi Vai port and one more container port in Ben Dinh-Sao Mai, both in the southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province.

In the 2008-11 period, the corporation will extend the Ba Ngoi port in the Cam Ranh Gulf , the central Khanh Hoa province, by building two additional container wharfs, and build a seaport in the Son Tra peninsula in central Da Nang province. (VNA)