The Vietnamese Government is prioritising the development of infrastructure of seaports. The Ministry of Transport said that the development master plan of Vietnam’s seaports until 2010 and the 2020 orientation had classified the Vietnamese seaport system into eight groups for research. Accordingly, the Prime Minister will approve detail master plans of four groups and the minister of transport, four remaining groups. Major seaports, prioritised for investment calling, include Cai Lan, Lach Huyen, Tien Sa, Van Phong, the international seaport of Cai Mep-Thi Vai, and the container port of Cai Mep-Thi Vai, the Hiep Phuoc industrial park port-Nha Be river, and a project on opening the way for ships to enter the Hau river.
Like many other works, the building of seaports is one of the fields in which the State has prioritised the attraction and encouragement of investment. However, this is still an open market. Alongside Vietnam to overcome initial difficulties, some foreign investors have succeeded with their projects in the field, such as a joint venture on building and exploiting the Phu My seaport in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, the VICT port on the Saigon river, Ho Chi Minh City. The result, however, remains modest compared to the increased demand of the rapidly-developing Vietnamese economy and potential of Vietnamese and foreign investors. In the coming years, Vietnam wishes to attract more domestic and foreign investors to the field. Thus, after the (amended) Maritime Law was adopted, the Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Transport to co-operate with ministries and agencies to issue guidelines on the law implementation. Accordingly, the Ministry of Transport is developing decrees guiding the implementation of the law in co-operation with ministries and agencies to submit to the prime minister for approval, creating more favourable conditions for management agencies, investors to exploit seaports.
So far, the decrees guiding the implementation of the Maritime Law have basically been completed. Under the law, organisations and individuals who invest in building seaports and passages to seaports are entitled to determine on their management and exploitation of seaports and passages. With this condition, the Government has encouraged and created favourable conditions for enterprises of all economic sectors to join the building of seaports in the build-operate-transfer (BOT), build-transfer-operate (BTO), build-transfer (BT) and joint venture forms.
In the draft decree to be issued by the Government, the Ministry of Transport proposed not to impose a compulsory proportion for capital contribution in joint ventures. Under the previous regulations, compulsory capital contribution proportion caused difficulties to sides when discussing the establishment of their joint ventures. The regulation is not included in the draft decree. Accordingly, depending on each concrete seaport, parties will develop their projects, based on which the Prime Minister will consider and approve. Also, the Ministry of Transport did not stipulate the scale and structure of seaports. In planning of seaports, the scale of ships to be received the seaports depends on conditions of passages to the ports. At present, the planning of seaports observes conditions of passages. However, with passages for 10,000 DWT ships, investors may be able to build quays for receiving bigger ships. This is based on experiences of investors because in fact in recent years, bigger ships carry less as they need to moor with the quays for goods loading. Also, quays have a lifetime of between 40 and 50 years. Big quays will not be rebuilt to receive bigger ships when passages are expanded.
The Ministry of Transport also affirmed that it would settle or propose other proposals to the prime minister, facilitating investment in the field. At the same time, administrative procedures for goods clearance will be reformed.
Apart from priorities offered to investors as stipulated by the law, depending on each concrete condition, the Ministry of Transport will co-operate with ministries and agencies to propose the Prime Minister to allow the application of concrete mechanisms for each concrete project, creating favourable conditions for investors to have their projects profitable.
In particular, the State will invest in developing infrastructure facilities outside seaports’ fences, such as roads, electricity and water supply networks. Investors will invest in items inside the fence. Also, other priorities, such as the exemption and reduction of costs, including natural resources, land, water and revenue and sale tax, will be offered to investors.
Lan Anh
Vietnamese
