3:26:42 PM | 7/8/2005
The Vietnam government has asked relevant ministries to seek loans from the World Bank for digging a short canal linking Can Tho Port with the South China Sea to facilitate the waterborne transport of goods.
Minister of Transport Dao Dinh Binh at a meeting in the Mekong Delta's Can Tho City on Monday said the government had instructed his ministry and the Ministry of Planning and Investment to secure funds for the project, estimated at US$150 million.
The project is aimed at digging a short canal linking the Hau River with the South China Sea via the existing Quan Chanh Bo Canal as a new waterway for heavy-tonnage ships of up to 20,000 DWT to access ports in the region.
Binh on Monday led a delegation on a fact-finding tour around the catchment area of the canal and concluded that the shortcut was the most viable one for this purpose. Participants in the delegation included officials of the Government Office, the National Assembly, the Maritime Administration, leaders of Mekong Delta provinces and foreign and local consultants.
The minister said digging Quan Chanh Bo Canal, which flows to the South China Sea from Tra Vinh province, will create an access channel for large ships to enter the Hau River and regional ports. The project, proposed by a group of consulting companies led by Canada's SNS-Lavalin International, will take four years to construct.
Binh said the ministry had reported to the Prime Minister the plan for building this new waterway from Can Tho Port to the sea, and had won the Government's approval for this project as a prioritized one for development before 2010.
According to statistics, the transport of commercial goods in the Mekong Delta is up to seven million tons per year, but its ports can only handle about 20 per cent of this amount, as the Dinh An Passage is the only artery linking the ports with the sea.
The continuous buildup of alluvium in the Dinh An Passage blocks ships larger than 5,000 DWT from entering Can Tho Port and other ports upstream, so exports can only be shipped in smaller quantities to Southeast Asian countries.
Therefore, building a new waterway to replace the Dinh An canal has been considered the best solution to improve the handling capacity of Can Tho Port and other ports in the Mekong Delta.
According to the plan, the canal will be 10 kilometers long. After completion, the short canal will help save US$78 million in transport costs till 2010.
Vietnamese
