Facilitating Trade through Competitive, Low-Carbon Transport

Thứ hai, 21/11/2016 10:10

Inland waterway transport (IWT) and coastal shipping are essential to the every- day functioning of the Vietnamese economy, which is endowed with two large river deltas and more than 3,000 kilometers of coastline. Yet over the past 15years the economics and environmental sustainability of these vital modes have been undermined by insufficient investments in expanding, improving, and preserving the country’s waterborne transport networks and key nodes such as river and ocean ports—despite sustained levels of rapid economic growth. This has resulted in reduced waterborne freight transport efficiency (e.g., higher trans-port costs and elevated congestion levels); has weakened incentives for transport carriers to invest in larger-scale, less-polluting vessels; and has likely increased national logistics costs. Furthermore, in the selected markets where modal shift from roads to the waterways may be economically and operationally viable, the case for such a shift has been equally undermined.