Potential

Ho Chi Minh City has dense system of rivers, canals, with nearly eight thousand kilometers in length, surface area of water is about 16% of the city area. In particular, many rivers and canals such as Te channel, Tau Hu channel, Tan Hoa canal - Lo Gom ... very favorable to develop waterway transportation and tourism. At one time, the main trading activities of people with Cho Lon area – Saigon Gia Dinh mainly by waterway transport. Crowded boats “selling – buying”, many large channel systems also are gateways connecting Saigon - Gia Dinh with surrounding areas to service activity exchanges & commodity transportation. Currently, the system of ports and inland terminals, the city has about 320 ports, wharves in which have four major ports as Saigon, New Port, Ben Nghe and Nha Be. Particularly, Saigon Port is one of the largest ports on cargo container capacity. There are more than 50 large and small wharves which have qualified enough to develop passenger transport services. Ships and boats of 20 tons or more also are allowed to pass-by easily on the rivers of the city. These advantages of city are more convenient many times than Mekong Delta provinces. Ho Chi Minh City also has a network of rich inland waterway. If this potential is planned and rational investment will help reduce the overload of current road traffic.

Although there are advantages, in the last years; while economic - social development, the potential of waterway transport gradually forgotten. Though there are many rivers and canals, some routes had been "wiped out" by the indiscriminate exploitation. On average, each day, the canal suffered about 40 tons of garbage dumped, which dried up the flow, causing difficulties in the circulation of ships and boats. Many lines have been turned into ... garbage channels. Whole city has 244 terminals and ports. Besides some large ports, the remaining is development slowly, not adequate attention, cannot improve full potential. Director of Port Authority in Ho Chi Minh City, Mr. Ngo Dinh Quang said that the ports currently are in the process of restructuring to match the master plan about waterway transport of Transport & Traffic Department. Over the years, Ho Chi Minh City had wasted a great potential in active waterway transport, while trying to find every way to solve overcrowding of the road transport.

According to the network planning of waterway and port, Ho Chi Minh City area from now until 2020 of Transportation & Traffic Department, the inland waterway routes includes 87 lines with total length of over 574 km, of which the lines are classified into six levels. Specifically, inland waterway route level 1 with 23 km in length; level 2 line with 1.2 km; level 3 line with 24.2 km; level 4 line with 137.2 km; level 5 line with 181.6 km; level 6 line 206.9 km. Similarly, the 2.6 km long river routes, the 252 km inland waterway route, the 146.8 km long maritime routes are also planning to create a network of waterway transportation link between the city and neighboring provinces. Accordingly, after the planning and renovation, we will have the route from the city to the Western provinces such as Ca Mau, Kien Giang, Ha Tien; Eastern provinces such as Bien Hoa, Binh Duong in the canal system connecting the provinces together.

Network of ports, inland wharves are also in project planning. For ports, Department of Transportation & Traffic will hold a sort out goods, passengers on Te canal; rearranging activity area in Truong Tho port (Thu Duc Dist.), construction and completion of freight port on the river such as Nhon Duc port (Nha Be Dist.), Phu Dinh Port (District 8), Long Binh (District 9); renovating one part of Sai Gon port in Ben Nha Rong and Khanh Hoi to become type of small travel ports, building international docks in Phu Thuan Park. Inland waterway ferry system is also renovated and rearranged at Bach Dang wharf and planning of cargo terminals on the outside belt route in north of the city and the passenger ports in the Tau Hu channel axis, Te channel - Doi channel and Saigon River.

"Although there are a lot of potential, to start building would face many difficulties" - that is Deputy Director’s opinion of Transportation & Traffic Department of Ho Chi Minh, Mr. Tran The Ky. Although the system of rivers and canals are scattered throughout the districts, but for development, the management authorities, the investment unit will also meet many difficulties. He said the space clearance of several bridges too low, the city has more than 230 bridges over the rivers and canals in which many bridges do not meet the standard, even the height is only 1 m (required 6m).

Tu Dinh bridge in Nha Be District is an example, the space clearance of the bridge is just over 1 meter, so it is difficult for the ships & boats to pass. In the inner city, when tides goes up, boats travel on the Saigon River to pass Binh Trieu bridge also fear to meet trouble. Many routes in city center also can be exploited for the development of waterway transport and tourism, but all meets difficulty because of too low bridge. For example, Bui Huu Nghia bridge, Bong bridge on Thi Nghe canal, Ngo Tat To bridge on Van Thanh canal (Binh Thanh District).

To implement the project, Mr. Ky said that we have to reconstruct some bridges. This will increase costs in the construction process. Attracting investment capital for construction projects will be extremely difficult. Based on the experience, the investors are afraid of investment in waterway due to no profit. Source of capital for construction projects may be due to city budget spent. It is a burden of the city budget. The implementation plan will also face many related issues such as parking, anti-erosion embankments and proceed the planning of the long-term development.

Development of river bus

However, when building this model the infrastructure of the waterway remain many troubles such as the connection between road and river traffic mostly not been implemented, the system of piers are not be invested ... Assessment for this project, Deputy Director of Transportation & Traffic Department, Mr. Tran The Ky considered that if being researched carefully, the project will succeed. In the present, City People's Committee has agreed the policy and suggested Waterway Management continuing to plan projects for submission to the City People's Committee. Bus boat on the river used that can carry about 30-40 passengers per trip, 16 thousand of passengers per day and nearly six million passengers per year.