HÀ NỘI — The Cái Mép-Thị Vải Port Complex has obtained significant investment for its expansion, however, it has still not fully maximised efficiency and capacity, causing wastage of potential and national resources.

The statement was made by Nguyễn Văn Trình, chairman of Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu People’s Committee, at a conference held in the province on Thursday.

The event was designed to find solutions to improve the management and exploitation of this port cluster.

Trình recommended that enterprises, functional agencies and associations highlight problems and inadequacies and contribute ideas and solutions to help the province improve the performance of the port cluster.

Nguyễn Duy Minh, secretary general of the Association of Logistics Services companies in Việt Nam, raised the question as to why people tend to use HCM City’s Cát Lái Port instead of Cái Mép-Thị Vải, despite the former being frequently overloaded.

He said the reason was that the Cát Lái Port had formed an "ecosystem" that included ports, customs (procedures) and fleet transportation, which were synchronised and had optimal cost. Therefore, Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu Province needed to build an "ecosystem" for the Cái Mép-Thị Vải Port like the Cát Lái Port, besides organising conferences to introduce the port to customers in the region.

In addition, the province should also coordinate with Đồng Nai Province to form depots (dry docks) along Highway 51 and have mechanisms to attract transportation companies to this port, Minh added.

Meanwhile, Ngô Minh Thuấn, deputy general director of Sài Gòn Newport Corporation, suggested incentives on tax and policies should be prioritised and inspection procedures for goods to be shipped directly to the United State and Europe should be simplified.

Besides this, it is necessary to install a customs scanner at the port cluster for quick inspection work and deploy the port management scheme.

Under the project “Improving management efficiency for seaports of port group No 5 and ports in Cái Mép-Thị Vải area", over the past four years, the Ministry of Transport has been actively coordinating with HCM City, Đồng Nai and Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu provinces and other related ministries and agencies to enhance the efficiency of the Cái Mép-Thị Vải Port Complex, according to Nguyễn Đình Việt, deputy director of the Việt Nam National Maritime Administration.

In recent years, total cargo and container cargo passing through the Cái Mép-Thị Vải Port Cluster has increased positively. Specifically, in 2013, total cargo reached 35 million tonnes, accounting for 5 per cent of the growth rate, and in 2016, the figure increased to 62 million tonnes, achieving a growth rate of more than 30 per cent.

The conference drew the participation of the Việt Nam National Maritime Administration, the General Department of Việt Nam Customs, the Association of Logistics Services companies in Việt Nam, and goods owners and ship owners in the area of the Cái Mép-Thị Vải Port Complex. — VNS