Ho Chi Minh City proposes int’l transit terminal in Can Gio district. (Source: VNA)

In a document recently sent to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, the municipal People’s Committee proposed the leader assign the Ministry of Transport to work with the committee and relevant agencies to assess advantages, opportunities, and possibility of an international transit terminal.

The HCM City administration said with a view to shifting part of the global container transit activities to Vietnam, the world’s largest sea shipping company MSC/TIL, the Vietnam Maritime Corporation, and Saigon Port have submitted a proposal to develop an international transit terminal in Can Gio.

With about 7.2km of wharves, this project is expected to be able to handle 10 - 15 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of cargo and serve the world’s largest container ships (24,000 TEUs) at present.

The project will be implemented in seven phases, the first of which is hoped to start in 2024 and become operational in 2027 while the last phase is set to be put into use in 2040.

The early construction of container terminals for seaports in HCM City during 2021 - 2030 is critical to meeting export - import activities of the city and the southern key economic region at present and in the future, the municipal People’s Committee said in its document.

According to the committee, the zoned Can Gio terminal area in the mouth of the Cai Mep River boasts favourable natural conditions for handling container vessels with deadweight tonnage (DWT) of up to 250,000 (or 24,000 TEUs), including its location on the shipping routes to Europe, Africa and the Americas.

It holds conditions for developing an international transit terminal able to compete with regional countries and make a breakthrough for the maritime economy in HCM City and Vietnam as a whole.

Cargo throughput in seaports of HCM City grew by 7.34% during 2015 - 2020, and the rate is predicted at 5% during 2021 - 2025.

In 2021, the throughput stood at 164.19 million tonnes, accounting for 23.36% of the total volume recorded at seaports nationwide.