Friday June 5, 12:21 AM
First cargo ship sails on direct Vietnam-US route: port
The first cargo ship directly linking Vietnam and the United States -- Vietnam's biggest export market -- set sail Thursday, the shipping firm and a port worker said.
The worker at the new Saigon Port-PSA terminal in southern Vietnam said the APL Denver had left on its 15-day journey to the US west coast city of Seattle.
It is the "first ever direct service to the US" from Vietnam, APL spokesman Paul Barrett told AFP, adding that US-bound cargo from Vietnam was previously routed through Singapore.
The service began days after the Saigon Port-PSA facility opened, becoming the first deepwater container terminal serving the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City, said APL, a unit of Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines.
"With this port, the first direct shipping service from Vietnam to North America is possible," Vietnam's deputy transport minister, Tran Doan Tho, was quoted as saying in the state Vietnam News at the weekend.
Previously, Vietnam's exporters relied on small feeder vessels to connect with larger ships for access to the world's major consuming markets, APL said.
The shipping firm's president, Eng Aik Meng, has said the start of a direct US service is recognition that Vietnam "is delivering on its commitment to modernise transportation infrastructure, such as state-of-the-art port facilities capable of handling large deepwater containerships."
Officials and industry figures attended a ceremony Wednesday to launch the weekly service, which will run from the new port on the Cai Mep River in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province.
"At a time when trade is contracting across the world, Vietnam is among a select few countries that expects to record export growth in 2009," APL senior vice-president for pan-American trade Bob Sappio said at the ceremony, a company statement said.
Barrett told AFP the first ship was "pretty full" and the company had met its expectations.
Products from global sportswear maker Nike were among those loaded on to the APL Denver, which carries 53-foot (15.9 metre) containers instead of the standard 40-foot version, APL said.
The US and Vietnam fought a war in the 1960s and early 1970s but economic ties have been restored and grown since the US lifted a trade embargo in 1994 and normalised diplomatic relations a year later.
Preliminary government data released last month showed that in the first three months of this year, Vietnam's exports to the US were valued at more than 2.3 billion dollars. Its second biggest market was the European Union, at more than 2.2 billion dollars.
The Washington-based US-ASEAN Business Council, which represents more than 100 US companies, said on a visit to Vietnam recently that the US is on track to become Vietnam's leading foreign direct investor within three years.
The new port is a joint venture between Saigon Port, Vietnam National Shipping Lines and PSA Vietnam, a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore port operator PSA International.
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