Morotai, a container ship owned by CMA CGM Group Agencies (Australia) Pty Ltd., docked at the SP-ITC International Container Terminal in District 9, Ho Chi Minh City, on March 15, following the route from the city to Australia and vice versa.
Weighing 40,000 tonnes and measuring 222 metres long, Morotai is the vessel with the largest deadweight tonnage having anchored at the SP-ITC port thus far.
Addressing the welcoming ceremony, Nguyen Xuan Sang, Director of the Vietnam Maritime Administration (under the Ministry of Transport), said that the handling of the largest-ever container ship was a big success for the SP-ITC terminal, helping to reduce transportation and loading/unloading costs for businesses and increase Vietnam’s competitiveness.
SP-ITC, the first privately invested container port in HCM City, has safely received more than 1,000 cargo vessels since it was put into operation in September 2016, contributing to the development of Vietnam’s maritime industry as a whole and HCM City in particular, he stated.
Explaining the reason for their selection of the SP-ITC port as a docking place for cargo transportation, the CMA CGM Group representative said that SP-ITC is a deep-water port located along the Hanoi Highway, the HCM City-Long Thanh-Dau Giay Expressway and National Highway 51, thus making it easy to connect to industrial parks in the provinces of Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau in transporting cargo from HCM City to the provinces. Furthermore, SP-ITC has been installed with a modern equipment system, meeting high technology standards in Vietnam.
According to Nguyen Van Chuyen, chairman of the directorate of the SP-ITC international transportation & trading services company, SP-ITC is the first port to be allowed by the Ministry of Finance to pilot and successfully apply an e-customs system and automatic customs clearance for imports and exports at the port. In the near future, the terminal will put an e-port system (automatic search) and e-billing (electronic payment) into use, aiming to help customers look up information on the status of goods and the legal status of goods, and make remote payments for services.
