Construction postponed, Van Phong port misses great opportunities

In a latest happening, the key project has been temporarily transferred to the Vietnam Maritime Bureau (Vinamarine). This has been affirmed by Nguyen Manh Ung, deputy general director of Portcoast Consultant Corporation, when he talked about the opportunities to restart the project on developing the Van Phong international port initially invested by the Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines).

Deputy prime minister Hoang Trung Hai has requested Vinamarine to draw up the plan to call for investment capital both from domestic and foreign investors under reasonable investment modes.

One week ago, Tuoi tre reported that the government has decided to halt the execution of the Van Phong port undertaken by Vinalines.

Hoang Dinh Phi, deputy Head of the Van Phong Economic Zone said on the newspaper that the decision was not a surprise to anyone, because Vinalines, the investor, has been too late in implementing the project.

The starting phase of the project, which is considered the "jumping board” for the Van Phong economic zone, was kicked off by Vinalines in October 2009. However, nothing more has been done so far, except some iron stakes driven in to the sea.

In 2011, Vinalines asked for the permission to adjust the project scale, raising the total length of the two harbors from 690 meters to 800 meters to make them capable to receive 12,000-15,000 TEU ships instead of 9000 TEU as previously designed.

However, to date, the investor still has not submitted the detailed plan to the Khanh Hoa provincial authorities and central agencies.

The news about the project implementation postpone has stirred up the public, because too much hope has been put on the port project. People have recalled the impressive kick-start ceremony which was kicked off in October 2009.

According to Lao dong, a report by the government inspectors showed that the kick-start ceremony cost 4.144 billion dong, though VInalines, the investor, was allowed to spend 50 million dong only on the event.

The big problem now is that the interruption of the project would cause a great waste of resources and strength.

"The problem is not in the waste hundreds of billions of dong worth of materials and the money to be paid to contractors as the reimbursement, but is that the opportunity to develop Van Phong into an international transit port has been missed,” Ung said.

In fact, contractors and enterprises have repeatedly given warnings about the problems of the Van Phong project.

The implementation of the 6b1 package deal assigned to the joint name of SK and Vinawaco worth 52.6 million dollars, has been stopped for the last two years, because the investor cannot arrange capital.

In late 2011, at a meeting reviewing the project implementation, deputy minister of Transport Nguyen Hong Truong expressed his worry that the delay in implementing comprehensive measures and the establishment of some big ports in regional countries would make it more difficult for Vietnam to built up Van Phong port.

At first, the two harbors, expected to be capable to receive 9000 TEU ships, were planned to become operational by November 2010. However, in mid October 2011, Vinalines still thought of making changes to the design. While the investor was still busy thinking, Van Phong lost the opportunity to become the only transit port in Vietnam.