To: Shipping Lines, Shipping agents

Dear Sirs or Mesdames, 

We would like to express our sincere thanks to you for the kind assistance to SNP.
It has been over two months since we had your valuable presence in the May meeting between SNP and the General Directors and the Chief Representatives of the shipping lines in Vietnam. We had received many priceless constructive opinions and suggestions from the representatives of shipping lines for the solutions to the port congestion problems. Through this letter, on behalf of the BOD of Saigon Newport, kindly let me express our deep gratitude to you for this precious support.
 

With the market share of import- export container throughput making up over 65% of those in the ports of southern provinces and over 42% nationwide, the receipt/ delivery and vessel dispatch activities at Cat Lai port have played an important role in the import- export trade of the Southern provinces and the national economy.

To meet the increasing demand of the shipping lines in term of berths and CY area, Saigon Newport has been speeding up the construction of the CY area of 6.2 ha and the 216m-long Berth B7, that is located next to the existing Berth B6 at Cat Lai Port.

The receipt/ delivery and vessel dispatch activities at Cat Lai port have been not only the concern of the shipping lines/ agents, forwarding companies and importers/ exporters, but they have also attracted the public interest when the port congestion has become the consecutive high - light in the newspapers in the recent time. After the proper and urgent measures had been taken, the operation activities at Cat Lai port has normalized in the mid of June 2008.

The proper policies and investment are the key factors for SNP in overcoming the difficulties in the port operation and increasing the vessel dispatch. In the week 24 (from 9 June to 13 June 2008) , the operation at Cat Lai port has been normalised and the handling net productivity was 35.4 moves/vessel.hour

At 17:45 on June 12, 2008, M/V UNI PACIFIC - VOYAGE 093 A/E of EMC with LOA of 183m and draft of 8.8m was the first vessel having LOA over 175m leaving the Cat Lai port during the night time. The super class pilot Tran Thanh Son and Mr. Hung- vice director of Pilot Company- zone 1 led the vessel

Accordingly, since June 1, 2008, the vessels having LOA up to 205 m would be able to navigate to and from Cat Lai Port during night time. The piloting navigation will be implemented from June 1, 2008 to November 30, 2008

During the meeting, two sides has discussed and came to the agreement on a lot of important issues. SNP requested the customs to permit the receipt of containers having “Ho Chi Minh city port”, “Cat Lai port ", "Tan Cang port” as the final destination in the Manifests and B/L at Cat Lai or Tan Cang

On May, 7 2008, the meeting between SNP and the chief representatives of shipping lines in Ho Chi Minh City was held. The shipping lines shared a lot of experiences as well as contributed the valuable suggestions prior to, during and after the Meeting