A year begins with spring, which is also the season for brightness and new hope to arise. To Gemadept Corporation (GMD), every spring has its own special meaning for another journey with new achievements.
Springs in the past
Being the leading enterprise in Vietnam in the field of port and logistics services, each milestone that Gemadept has gone through is attached with springs. Starting-up business since the springs when Vietnam initiated economic reform, taking the South as the cradle for development, up to now, after nearly 30 years, GMD has successfully created and constantly expanded its port and logistics network.
The success in South Vietnam created a solid basis for GMD to move forward with its policy of business expansion to the North. In the spring of 2009, Nam Hai Port in Hai Phong City welcomed the first vessel call (29 February 2009), marking the official presence of GMD at this busy port cluster. Only one year after its opening, the port has performed 95% of the designed capacity and in 2017, the port continued to exceed 43% of the design capacity despite declining output at the upstream area.
Then, in the spring of 2014, Nam Hai Dinh Vu Port (NDP), GMD’s second port in Hai Phong, welcomed the first vessel call. With the Corporation’s proper evaluation of cargo source moving trend towards the downstream, NDP reached nearly 95% of its capacity after only two years in operation and maintained an impressive growth in 2017, exceeding 30% of its design capacity.
Welcoming new springs
In 2017, with many positive moves of GMD in its potential projects, the joy on welcoming a new spring of the Corporation became even more complete.
One of the highlights of GMD last year was the launch of Nam Hai Distribution Center with the scale of 9,660 sqm, providing the most modern port and logistics integrated services in Hai Phong area. In parallel, the Corporation completed eight of nine largest and most modern cold storage facilities in South East Asia namely Mekong Logistics project. Furthermore, 3rd phase of the Car Logistics Center of KGL (Kline Gemadept Logistics) was also completed, making KGL the pioneer and the largest enterprise in this service in Vietnam. In addition, GMD continued to strengthen its feeder and river vessel fleet capacity by investing in the largest and best quality ones in the country.
Meanwhile, the most impressive development of GMD in 2017 was the construction of Nam Dinh Vu port phase 1 with a capacity of 600,000 TEUs, investment of $75 million including two berths and modern equipment. The port is located right at the mouth of Cam River. On 4 February 2018, Nam Dinh Vu Port successfully received the first vessel call, marking an important milestone of GMD in Hai Phong port market.
According to FPTS, the fact that Nam Dinh Vu Port commences operation from the beginning of 2018 will create a surge in port revenue for GMD, with the target of 65% utilization in 2018 while 95% & 105% for 2019 & 2020 respectively. The basis for achieving the targets is that with the introduction of Bach Dang bridge after 2017, a large cargo volume from the upstream of Cam River is moved downstream. In addition, GMD has conducted research and negotiation with shipping lines to ensure a stable cargo volume for the port. Moreover, thanks to its strategic position, experience and good quality services as well as the strong support from shipping lines, Nam Dinh Vu Port is expected to be a preferred choice of shipping lines for their vessel calling.
It can be said that, for GMD, the spring of 2018 has started with brilliant buds blooming from the seeds planted during previous springs.
Furthermore, in 2018, GMD will continue its development journey by resuming the construction of Gemalink, Vietnam’s largest deep-sea port project, with investment for Phase 1 of about $345 million. 2018 will also be the year when GMD enters a period of strong development in logistics activities through its cooperation with a foreign partner having strong financial status, experience, technology and global network namely CJ Logistics.
A new year starting with spring and springs of Gemadept are always attached with new development, motivation and belief for 2018 filled with energy and success.
