Belgian funding for Vietnamese dredging project
The Soai Rap River dredging project officially started in Vietnam this week – it aims to bring customers faster to market, lower costs and provide easier transportation.
The project, reportedly worth US$134m, is being undertaken by the Ho Chi Minh (HCMC) Government Department of Transport and work is being carried out by a partnership of international and local dredging contractors.
The funding for the project is said to be provided by a preferential loan from Belgium.
Work will include the dredging of a 54km long section of the river which will make the channel more navigable for larger vessels. The channel will also be deepened to a 9.5m draft to handle 50 to 70,000 gross tonnage ships. The work is expected to take around 10 months.
Compared with the existing 85km Long Tau channel, the new channel will be four times wider and crucially it will cut transport time to Hiep Phuoc Port by two hours. It’s just 15km from the centre of HCMC.
Global terminal operator, DP World, welcomed the news and said it the dredging will provide a new major transport artery for trade to develop and grow – its Saigon Premier Container Terminal was after all designed with the project in mind.
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