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September 6, 2006 SSA Marine, Seattle 206.654.3575 PM Approves Saigon Port - SSA Marine Container Terminal SEATTLE— Vietnam Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, has approved the establishment of a joint venture between Saigon Port and SSA Marine to develop and operate SP-SSA International Container terminal (SSIT) at Cai Mep, in the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province. SSIT will support container traffic in the greater Ho Chi Minh City area. Ho Chi Minh City container traffic is currently 2,200,000 TEU’s per year and growing at an average rate of 20% per year.
“We are very pleased the Prime Minister approved our project. SSIT is a critical element in Port Area 5’s long term plan to shift container volume from the existing ports in Ho Chi Minh City to less congested deep water container terminals,” stated Le Cong Minh, director general of Saigon Port.
The joint venture between Saigon Port and SSA Marine is the first proposed international joint venture container terminal approved by the Vietnamese government for the Cai Mep – Thi Vai Region.
“Vietnam’s economy and container volume are growing at unprecedented levels. Couple this growth with Vietnam’s future admission to WTO, and it’s obvious this additional container terminal capacity will be required as quickly as possible. We are moving forward with our engineering and hope to have this world class terminal operating in 2009,” emphasized Bob Watters, SSA Marine vice president – managing director Asia.
SSIT will consist of 600m of berth and 60 hectares of back-up land. It will have a total annual capacity of 1.35 million TEU’s. The total cost to construct and equip the terminal is $160,000,000.
About SSA Marine
SSA Marine, a subsidiary of Carrix, Inc., is the largest U.S. owned, and the largest privately held container terminal operator and cargo handling company in the world, handling approximately 22 million container TEU’s per year. The nearly 60 year old company serves more than 120 locations worldwide, including port operations throughout the U.S. as well as internationally in Panama, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, South Africa and New Zealand.
About Saigon Port
Saigon Port is under the Vietnam National Shipping Lines Corporation (Vinalines) and operates 5 terminals in South Vietnam with nearly 4,000 employees, more than 3 km of wharf length, 30 buoy berths and total area of approximately 600,000m2. Cargo throughput has increased from less than 1,000,000 to more than 12 million tons annually. For many years Saigon Port has been a leader in terminal operations, for all types of cargo, in Vietnam. .
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