On April 24, 2006, the Prime Minister signed a decision on the establishment and operation rules of the Van Phong economic zone. This is general economic zone, consisting of a container entrepot and other areas for tourism, services, industry, aquaculture and other economic fields. Total area of the zone is around 150,000 hectares, with 80,000 hectares of water surfaces and 70,000 hectares of land.
The Van Phong bay, located near a crossroad of the Europe-Northern Asia and Southeast Asia-Northeast Asia maritime routes, is close by, so it rarely suffers from storms. It consists of islets and a peninsula. The bay depth is between 20 and 23 metres. Van Phong has adequate conditions to build the largest international entrepot in Vietnam with a loading and unloading capacity of 17 million TEU (Singapore’s entrepot has a capacity of around 15.6 million TEU and the capacity of ports around Ho Chi Minh City is just one million TEU. The bay is deep enough to receive large ships, even the biggest ship in the world, around 400,000 tonnes.
Also, the zone is located near national highways 1A and 26, the trans-Vietnam railway route, so it is easy to link with other regions in Vietnam. In addition, the Van Phong-Dai Lanh has a diversified ecological system with rainforests and mangrove forests, beautiful beaches, islets and peninsulas, which prove the region’s potential for tourism development. At the same time, the region is good for farming seafood, including lobsters, fragrant snails and pearl oysters, as well as other seafood.
The Van Phong economic zones consists of two main parts, such as a non-tariff part with international container entrepot, a port logistic areas and trade centres, and a tariff part with an oil entrepot, ports for special purposes, tourist sites, industrial parks, residential and administrative areas.
So far, preparations have made for the building of some major items of the zone. This is a container quay with a capacity of 500,000 TEU per annum, which is built with an investment capital of US$105 million and a one million cubic metre petrol and oil bonded warehouses, valued at over US$50 million. The two works will make a breakthrough for the beginning of the Van Phong economic zone. Van Phong now has the Dam Mon international port for exporting sand, the tourist sites of Dam Mon, Hon Ong and the Hyundai-Vinashin factory.
M.T
Vietnamese
