Though operating for only a year, Cai Mep International Terminal (CMIT) in Vietnam will handle close to 600,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2012, representing 50 percent of the volume currently moving through the Cai Mep port area.
CMIT opened in March 2011 and already has productivity that regularly exceeds 40 crane moves per hour, said Steen Davidson, managing director.
But the Cai Mep port, which has six terminals, is saddled with surplus capacity and needs to attract more transshipment volumes to fuel growth, Nguyen Xuan Ky, CMIT’s commercial director, said during a visit to the port by a government delegation led by Vietnam President Truong Tan Sang.
“To achieve this, we need assistance from the government to make port charges more competitive with other Southeast Asian countries,” he added.
Terminals in Ho Chi Minh City, on the Saigon River, and Cai Mep in southern Vietnam account for more than 60 percent of all Vietnamese container traffic, with a combined 4.3 million TEUs handled in 2010, representing growth of 10.8 percent over 2009.
CMIT, in the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, is currently the only terminal in Vietnam capable of accommodating larger deep-draft vessels.
The terminal, in which APM Terminals is a shareholder, handled 186,000 TEUs in 2011.
Vietnam has one of the fastest growing economies in Asia, expanding by 5.8 percent in 2011 to US$121.6 billion. The IMF has forecast a 6.3 percent growth rate for 2012, CMIT said.
Photo: APM Terminals
