According to the Saigon Times Daily, Deputy Director Duong Van Hoa said that Vietnam National Coal-Mineral Industries Group (Vinacomin) would build a US$250mn deepwater port at Khe Ga Cape, in BinhThuan province. Khe Ga Seaport will be utilised to import coal, and export aluminium and minerals. Theport will be able to handle ships up to 80,000 deadweight tonnes (DWT). The Ministry of Transport’sVinamarine International Co-operation Department has stressed that the investments necessary inVietnam’s port sector are considerable if the sector is to keep up with the wider economy. The key forVietnam is to sustain investor interest in the sector. Thus far, there has been little evidence that investorshave lost interest in Vietnam’s infrastructure sector.
Taking this and other developments such as the downturn in the global economy into consideration,BMI’s newly released Vietnam Freight Transport Report concludes that shipping traffic will increase byan annual average of 6.7% in 2009-2013, measured in tonnes per km. A number of factors underpin thisforecast. One is the still-realistic prospect of a long, export-led boom in Vietnam, with annual GDPgrowth likely to average 6.1% in 2009-2013, only a little slower than the 7.8% rate achieved in thepreceding five-year period. Infrastructure plans are also ambitious, with many new ports underdevelopment.
Our overall outlook for the nascent freight transport industry across the different modes is bullish despitethe recession. Although the next two years will be tough, air freight will grow by an annual average of7.6% over the next five years. In road haulage, we have trimmed our forecast to take account of theeconomic slowdown, but we still see turnover running ahead of the general rate of economic expansion inVietnam. We see road freight growing by an annual average of 7.5% over the next five years, followedclosely by pipeline throughput (7.0%), maritime freight (6.7%, as already mentioned) and rail (6.6%).
Full World Trade Organization (WTO) membership, achieved in early 2007, can be seen as supportive ofgreater freight transport turnover relative to GDP across all modes, particularly so for shipping. We nowexpect total freight carried growth across all modes, measured in million tonne-km (mntkm), to average6.8% per annum in 2009-2013.
Under BMI’s freight transport rating system, Vietnam achieves a composite score of 54.3 out of apotential maximum of 100. Vietnam’s stronger points are freight growth, transport infrastructure growthand the transport intensity index, which measures the dynamism of the country’s foreign trade. BMIviews Vietnam as being weaker in the other four categories: economic and political long-term risks, andthe country’s regulatory and competitive environment (corruption is a particular problem).According to our latest estimates, the total value of transport and communications GDP will rise toUS$6.6bn in nominal terms by 2013, representing 4.5% of Vietnam’s GDP.
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