THE first deepsea container terminal in northern Vietnam, the Haiphong International Container Terminal (HICT) that can handle 14,000-TEUers, has opened for business, reports London's Loadstar
THE first deepsea container terminal in northern Vietnam, the Haiphong International Container Terminal (HICT) that can handle 14,000-TEUers, has opened for business, reports London's Loadstar. The Port of Haiphong, 130 kilometres from Hanoi, has enjoyed 14.6 per cent annual growth since from 2012 to 2017 reaching a throughput 4.45 million TEU a year.
River Cam draft has limited Haiphong to 2,000-TEUers, but new facilities at the south of the river estuary on Cat Hai island has been dredged to 14 metres.
The terminal has two berths, totalling 750 metres. Two quay cranes are in operation, with another four due to go online in February, when capacity will reach 1.1 million TEU.
Shipping lines are planning to send vessels of 8,500-10,000 TEU to HICT by the end of 2018,' said HICT vice director Bui Quang Huy.
'For mainline trades, local importers and exporters will benefit from lower logistics costs and shorter total lead times,' he said.
'What we might see is a few mainline services calling directly, taking the lion's share of the market, leaving the balance of cargo to continue its hub and spoke routing.
'On Asia-Europe, a Haiphong call might be interesting for the operators of smaller vessels, such as THE Alliance, Zim or HMM,' he said.
