At the gateway to the northern economic region
| Hosting National Tourism Year in 2018, Quang Ninh for the first time received over 12 million visitors, earning 24 trillion dong (over 1.04 billion US dollars). |
The province has recently put into operation three major transport projects with a total investment of around 25 trillion dong (nearly 1.09 billion US dollars). The projects are the Ha Long-Van Don expressway, Van Don international airport and Hon Gai international cruise port.
The Ha Long-Van Don expressway connects the economic development triangle of Hanoi, Hai Phong and Quang Ninh to boost links for development of the northern key economic region. It is also an important infrastructure project which gives new development momentum for the Van Don economic zone.
| The 60km Ha Long-Van Don expressway halves the travel time between Ha Long and Van Don to 50 minutes. Photo: VNA
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Van Don international airport is the first airport in the country built in the form of BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer). It is not only Quang Ninh’s “gateway to the sky” but also the first private-invested airport project of the transport sector, which has opened a new stage of airport development in the country.
| In 2018, Hai Phong port handled 32.87 million tons of cargos with total revenues of nearly 2.2 trillion dong (over 956 million US dollars), keeping its position as the top seaport in north Vietnam. |
Hon Gai international port, the first specialized cruise port in Vietnam, is capable of receiving state-of-the-art cruise ships. It can handle two cruise ships at a time, each with a capacity of 225,000 GT and capable of carrying 6,500 passengers. With the operation of the port, cruise ships can now dock ashore, instead of having to anchor offshore and use tender boats to take passengers ashore as previously.
Hai Phong’s Lach Huyen port was built in 2013 with a total cost of 1 billion US dollars. After the first phase of construction was completed in May 2018, the port has a handling capacity of about 300,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEUs), to be increased to 2-3 million TEUs in 2019.
Combined with other operating ports, Hai Phong will be able to handle around 5 million TEUs, almost equal to the capacity of ports in Ho Chi Minh City which handled 5.94 million TEUs in 2018.
Other infrastructure projects are also being implemented to serve the port project in Hai Phong, including a new expressway which helps cut in half the travel time from Hanoi to Hai Phong to 90 minutes, and an expressway from Hai Phong to Quang Ninh which will open this year.
“Lach Huyen port plays a key role in Vietnam’s maritime strategy,” Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said. North Vietnam is growing into a manufacturing hub for machinery, electronics and auto and precision industries. Samsung Electronics has set up mobile phone plants in the region. Deep C industrial park near Lach Huyen has attracted about 80 domestic and foreign enterprises.
