Foreign investors flock to Lien Chieu deep seaport

Danang wants to construct Lien Chieu Port to facilitate cargo transport

Boskalis Inter A.V is the newest foreign investor that expressed interest in the project. Wanter Jacobs, regional business manager of Boskalis, said in the document sent to the Ministry of Transport that the investor wants to join component A–general infrastructure. Boskalis will collaborate with T&T Group to deploy this project, particularly in conducting the feasibility study, design, and build general infrastructure system in component A.

Boskalis was founded in Netherlands in 1910, and provides dredging, offshore energy, and maritime services across the globe. Its projects cover 75 countries on six continents, and the corporation has a fleet of more than 1,100 ships and 15,600 professionals.

The chances of Boskalis-T&T venture joining the Lien Chieu project depend on the appraisal result of the pre-feasibility study of the MoT, which expects to submit it to the prime minister in the early second quarter of 2018.

With the total investment of around VND7.378 trillion ($325 million), the Lien Chieu Port project is divided into two components. Component A is worth VND3.426 trillion ($151 million) and will construct public maritime infrastructure. 80 per cent of this component project will come from the state budget and 20 per cent come from the private sector. Component B will have a total investment of VND3.952 trillion ($174 million).

Earlier, in January 2018, the prime minister has assigned the Ministry of Transport to appraise the pre-feasibility study of Lien Chieu Port project’s first phase, while the Ministry of Planning and Investment collaborated with the Ministry of Finance to consider and find solutions to mobilise capital.

According to the city’s proposal, Lien Chieu Port would combine five functional areas, including a 50,000DWT (deadweight tonnage) harbour, another harbour which could handle 80,000-100,000DWT container ships with a loading capacity of 5,000-8,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEUs), a liquid cargo harbour handling 10,000DWT ships, and an inland waterway harbour for 1,000-5,000DWT ships, as well as a logistics services area and other infrastructure.