Dubai/ Ho Chi Minh City: DP World Saturday announced the official opening of DP World-operated Saigon Premier Container Terminal (SPCT) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Attending the event were DP World Chairman Sultan Ahmad Bin Sulayem, Ho Nghia Dung, Vietnam's Minister of Transportation, Lê Hoàng Quân, Chairman of HCMC People's Committee and Phan Hong Quan, General Director of Tan Thuan Industrial Promotion Company, SPCT's joint venture partner IPC a state-owned enterprise, among 700 other senior officials and dignitaries.
The DP World-operated container terminal, which is located along the western shore of the Soai Rap River on 23 hectares in the Hiep Phuoc Industrial Park, is a state-of-the-art facility which began operations in October 2009, two years after construction began in September 2007.
At the height of construction more than 1,500 local workers were deployed on site. Phase one of the dev-elopment has two berths and storage capacity of up to 15,000 TEU (twenty foot equivalent container units) at a time, including 650 refrigerated container slots.
The continued development of the infrastructure by government authorities includes dredging of the Saoi Rap river to a depth of 9.5 metres, allowing SPCT to serve vessels with a nominal capacity of up to 5,000 TEU close to the city. DP World will then be able to serve both the intra-Asia market and deep sea trades. Additional dredging to a depth of 12 metres is planned in the near future, when SPCT will be able to handle vessels up to 8,000 TEU.
"We congratulate the Vietnamese Government and the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City on their vision... to building the infrastructure upon which the new industrial zone depends — notably roads, bridges, and especially the waterway access via a deepened Soai Rap River," Bin Sulayem, said in a press release.
