Vietnam’s largest container port targets top 50 status globally

Ho Chi Minh City’s Cat Lai port, run by the Saigon New Port Company, has set a target to become one of the world’s 50 leading container ports by 2010.
To achieve the goal, the Saigon New Port Company and the Saigon Customs Bureau Region No1 have agreed on stronger collaboration to better serve importers and exporters.

After Vietnam entered the World Trade Organization (WTO), experts forecast that there would be a fresh wave of imports and exports at the nation’s ports.

Leaders of Cat Lai port, whose construction was started three years ago in District 2, are striving to satisfy the imminent boom in goods.

The company is investing in more advanced equipment so that by 2008 it can handle some two million TEU (twenty-foot-equivalent units) of cargo, roughly 28 million tons of commodities.

Cat Lai port currently transports some 60 percent of import/export containers in Ho Chi Minh City and over 40 percent in Vietnam.

Reported by Tran Hung – Translated by Tuong Nhi