Cai Mep International Terminal (CMIT) received the maiden call of the 14,000 TEU m/v CSCL Star, the ultra-large container vessel (ULCV) of 157,000 deadweight tons, deployed in the Ocean 3 Alliance, marking the first Vietnam/Northern Europe direct service.

Two feeder services have also started to call at CMIT to transship Thailand and Cambodia export cargo through CMIT.

“This operation fits well into the vision of CMIT to be the first container hub port for domestic and international transshipment”, said Robert Hambleton, general director of CMIT. “The transshipment operation is supported by the Vietnamese government, as Vietnam positions itself within the Cai Mep deep-water container port group to best serve the Europe-Vietnam free trade agreement which was agreed to in September.”

The Vietnamese Ministry of Transport funded the Cai Mep channel maintenance dredging. This recent work has brought the channel depth down to over 43 feet at low water, in time to receive the CSCL Star. Before the dredging only ASEAN hubs in Singapore and Malaysia would have been capable of handling that size vessel.