Given its favourable geographical location, with a deep sea port, Da Nang is securing its stature as a major maritime transport centre and an important logistics hub in Central Viet Nam.

Tien Sa is one of the largest seaports in Central Viet Nam, currently serving as an important traffic hub of the East-West Economic Corridor.

Not only a coastal city, Da Nang lies in the central key economic zone, serving as the endpoint and the Pacific gateway for the East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC). Based on these advantages, Da Nang boasts tremendous potential to develop its maritime logistics services.

In particular, in active response to the Politburo-adopted Resolution No 43-NQ/TW regarding the Da Nang’s major developments to 2030 with a vision to 2045 dated 24 January, 2016, Da Nang will, by leaps and bounds, strive to make new remarkable strides to become a sea-based economic centre and forming a logistics service supply chain for Central Viet Nam and Central Highlands.

In his evaluations, Vice President of the Da Nang Bridge and Road Association Tran Dan highlighted the city’s strengths to boost its logistics industry. Not only is the city located in the central key economic zone with a full range of important transport types, but it also plays an important role in the Greater Mekong sub-region, one of the world's fastest growing regions, with the robust growth of the EWEC.

In fact, there are a total of 20 large and small seaports along coastal areas in Central Viet Nam, but the total volume of goods transported through the region's port clusters only accounts for a very small proportion of the country’s.

The main reason is thought to be that most of the seaports are small scale, hereby lacking piers for receiving large-capacity container ships.

Under its long-term plans, Da Nang is eyeing to build Lien Chieu Port for handling cargo ships, and serving as a main logistics centre in Central Viet Nam for the north-south railway and road systems and the EWEC, hereby helping Da Nang turn itself into a leading international commercial gateway in the ASEAN region in the future.

Da Nang has great advantages to develop logistics services. Here are loading and unloading operations at the Tien Sa Port.

Meanwhile, the existing Tien Sa Port, built by the Americans in 1965, which has been overloaded with cruise and cargo ships, will be used as a major port for cruises only.

The soon-to-be-developed highly-competitive Lien Chieu mega- port is highly expected to stand on par with others nationwide.

Domestic experts affirmed that the Lien Chieu Port, which will be few times bigger than the existing 27-hectare Tien Sa, will help reduce traffic congestion, leading to faster delivery of goods.

Likewise, an expert from Japan Port Consultants, said that Da Nang eventually will have to build the new port if it wants to be the next Busan in South Korea or the next Hong Kong.

As per request of the Da Nang government, the Ministry of Planning and Investment is asking for approval from Viet Nam's national government and the National Assembly to provide  200 billion VND in funding to the commence of the Lien Chieu port.

During its subsequent implementation stages, focus will be place on attracting domestic and foreign investors to pour their money into logistics work items at this large-scale project.

In parallel with the already-planned regional-level logistics centre, provincial-level logistics centres will be built in the city, namely one in Hoa Vang District, another to the north of the Da Nang International Airport and the other in the Hi-tech Park.

By PHUONG UYEN – Translated by A.T