Foreign investment drive for Vietnamese ports

Vietnam is trying to attract both national and international investors in its public-private-partnership initiative for ports.

There are currently 23 foreign direct investment projects in port development projects, amounting to investment of $3.3bn, many of which are joint ventures.

However, more are needed given that many ports are using out of date technology and lack sufficient capacity. Only a handful have modern handling equipment.

Government plans are to boost volumes handled by ports by up to 600m tonnes a year by 2015, reaching 2.1bn tonnes by 2030.

The country is looking for investment of $4bn to build up to 20 km of new quays by 2020.