President Nguyễn Xuân Phúc and other officials join a breaking-ground ceremony for construction of the Liên Chiểu port in Đà Nẵng. The port will act as a key logistics centre in central Việt Nam and ASEAN. Photo courtesy of Lan Anh

ĐÀ NẴNG — President Nguyễn Xuân Phúc officially broke ground to start construction of Liên Chiểu Port in the central city, making it a leading ASEAN port and key logistics connection in central Việt Nam.

The port development would help promote Đà Nẵng as one of the key gateways to the East Sea, ASEAN, Northeast Asia and a rendezvous point of the national multi-traffic system including road, railway and airway, Phúc said at the ground-breaking ceremony of the port on December 14.

“The port will be an entrepot of cargo from the East-West Economic Corridor No 2 (EWEC2) connecting Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Việt Nam via Đà Nẵng port system, and a logistics hub of the central and central highlands region,” Phúc said.

“The new Liên Chiểu port will help ease overloaded Tiên Sa Port and the city’s inner traffic system, while serving as a logistics centre for central provinces and cities linked with Chân Mây port in Thừa Thiên Huế, Chu Lai and Kỳ Hà in Quảng Nam and Dung Quất of Quảng Ngãi,” he said.

Phúc urged Đà Nẵng to focus on human resource training and maintain the capacity of an international-standard logistics centre in the future.  

He also said the development of the port will play a key role in turning Đà Nẵng into a ‘smart and eco-city’, an innovation start-up centre and a driving force for the central region in the Master Plan for 2030-45.

Head of the city’s management unit of priority infrastructure projects, Lê Thành Hưng stressed the port, which will be built on a total of 450ha with an investment of VNĐ3.426 trillion (US$137 million), will be a unique integrated port in Việt Nam serving multiple functions and vehicles including road, railway and airway cargo.

An oil tanker anchors at Đà Nẵng Bay. The area was reserved for the development of Liên Chiểu port in 2021-25. VNS Photo Công Thành

He said the port would be an attraction to international shipping agents and logistics providers and investors in the coming years.

Hưng said the port was designed to accept 200,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT) cargo ships and container ships with loading capacities from 8,000 to 18,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEUs) as well as 30,000DTW liquid cargo vessels in 2050.

It’s expected that the first phase of the construction including two berths for container ships with a loading capacity of 8,000TEUs (100,000DWT), a 7.3km shipping lane and a 1.17km water breaker dyke system, will be put into operation in 2025, he added.

He said Liên Chiểu Port with total of 20 berths could handle from 40 million to 50 million tonnes of cargo in 2050.

Currently, Đà Nẵng’s port system including Tiên Sa and Thọ Quang hosted 13 million tonnes of cargo in 2022.

The construction of the port also involved the participation of local property developer BRG Group and Japan’s Sumitomo Group.

BRG and Sumitomo said they will strengthen logistics networks and the air and sea connections, to improve Đà Nẵng’s economic growth. — VNS