New internal water cargo route to be built in central city

Da Nang (VNA) - The central city of Da Nang plans to build an internal water route and pier system to transport cargo between Tien Sa and Lien Chieu ports and ease congestion on National Highway 14B caused by commercial cargo.

According to General Director of the Da Nang Port Joint Stock Company Nguyen Huu Sia, the project will be built with total investment of 300 billion VND (13.3 million USD) and will be operational in the second quarter of 2020.

Sia said the internal water route will reduce the number of containers in Tien Sa Port that need to be transported on National Highway 14B by 20 percent.

He said the route will be open to ships and barges under 5,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT) from ports in Quang Ngai, Quang Binh and Quang Nam and north-south cargo shipment services.

“We plan to build a customs clearance and logistics service in Lien Chieu district to receive and process cargo from neighbouring ports. It will be shipped by freighter to Tien Sa Port to be loaded on cargo ships,” Sia said.

“This route will limit the amount of bulky cargo that is transported via roadways and causes serious traffic accidents and congestion,” he said. “National Highway 14B, which connects Tien Sa Port, the Central Highlands region and National Highway No 1 and the Da Nang-Quang Ngai Expressway, is very busy but measures like this one can help.”

Construction will start on the route in the second quarter of 2019.

Last year, the Tien Sa Port Company invested more than 44.2 million USD, 36 percent of which was sourced from its own capital, to add two piers to Tien Sa Port so it can handle 12 million tonnes of cargo per year.

The newly upgraded port can accommodate ships up to 70,000DWT or 4,000 twenty-foot container units (TEU), and cruise ships up to 150 gross tonnage (GT).

The port hosted eight million tonnes of cargo in 2017.

Recently, Da Nang proposed the Ministry of Transport speed up construction on the first stage of Lien Chieu Port so it can be ready to go into operation in 2022.

The Lien Chieu port project is of importance for Da Nang in terms of infrastructure, socio-economic development and security-defence. After Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc agreed in principle to the project in November 2016, the Da Nang People’s Committee conducted a pre-feasibility study for the project and submitted it to the Ministry of Transport, which later submitted its assessment of the study to the Prime Minister in May this year.

Da Nang authorities have completed dossiers for the project’s pre-feasibility research report.

Statistics show with the annual growth of throughput at 16.2 percent, Da Nang’s ports will have to handle around 10 million tonnes of cargo by 2020 and 30 million tonnes by 2030, which will surpass the capacity of Tien Sa port after 2020 and overwhelm the transport infrastructure in the area, causing traffic jams and accidents as well as environmental pollution, thus affecting the city’s tourism development.

Recently, the traffic flow of trucks and container trucks from Tien Sa port going through the Yet Kieu-Ngo Quyen-Ngu Hanh Son has surged, causing several serious accidents, hence the urgent need for the early construction of Lien Chieu port.

Under Da Nang’s project on developing sea-based economy by 2025 with vision to 2030, the city will focus resources on developing maritime transport. Accordingly, Tien Sa port will be reserved to serve cruise ships and Lien Chieu is set to become the major cargo port in the city.-VNA