The development potential of waterway transport

​(CTTĐT-Dong Nai) - Dong Nai currently has 13 rivers and canals with a total length of more than 2.3 thousand km, of which the largest is the Dong Nai River with a length of about 220 km flowing through the province. This is considered a great advantage for the development of waterway transport. 

Dong Nai river and its waterway transport network is mainly utilized to transport construction materials 

Advantages in developing waterway transportation

Dong Nai is currently one of the localities with the most industrial zones in the country, attracting large foreign investment capital. At the same time, the proportion of the construction industry in the economic structure is also high.

This is a huge advantage of Dong Nai in developing waterway transport in the field of freight activity, especially on the Dong Nai river.

In service of the production, the need to transport raw materials in the province is very large. Besides, Dong Nai has rich mineral resources as construction materials, which is a huge source of goods that need to be transported by waterway.

 Besides transporting goods by waterway, Dong Nai also identifies tourism development, especially green tourism, and ecotourism as one of the breakthrough fields for socio-economic development in the coming years. This also opens up development opportunities for the passenger transport by water.

 In addition to low investment costs, waterway transport routes also have a competitive advantage compared to roads that can be exploited for a long time but with less maintenance and repair needed.

 Meanwhile, according to architect Nguyen Manh Dung, former Chairman of the Provincial Association of Architects, the Dong Nai river passing through the province has advantages that few other rivers have. Not only is the river carrying cultural, historical and landscape values, the Dong Nai River also brings great value in terms of traffic. The river flows through the province rarely floods and when it happened, it was not serious.

 Synchronized planning

 Although it is considered to have a lot of potential, so far, the development of waterway transport including on the Dong Nai river route is unnoticeable.

 On the current Dong Nai river route, water transport has only been used for freight transport, which mainly serves the transportation of construction materials. Meanwhile, although stretching from Tan Phu district to Nhon Trach district, passenger transport on Dong Nai River is almost left untouched.

 Dong Nai also has a full range of connections within the province as well as with localities such as Ho Chi Minh City, Ba Ria - Vung Tau and the southwestern provinces. However, the connection in waterway transport, especially passenger transport between Dong Nai and the above localities, is not yet available. Specifically, the waterway network for passenger transport in the province currently has only ferries, but there are no waterway buses, high-speed crafts or other means to exploit.

According to the Department of Transport, the total volume of passengers transported by waterway in the province is estimated at 3.3 million passengers per year on average, equal to about 6% of the volume of passenger transported by road.

From that fact, at present, the Provincial People's Committee has requested the transport department to have a full re-planning to take advantage of the potentials and advantages of waterway transport, specifically the Dong Nai river.

In the mid-term report of the provincial planning period 2021-2030, with a vision to 2030, the consortium of consulting units also identified the development of the waterway transport system as one of the important aspects of the strategy in building a synchronous and modern transport infrastructure system to meet development needs.

Specifically, the completion of the waterway traffic development plan will be implemented synchronously from the correction, renovation and upgrading of the navigation channel system in the province to ensure convenient and synchronous access for ships, with the seaport capability is already planned.  

For the province's waterway network, the plan must first ensure two possibilities of adapting to changes in the total area already formed and adapting to future development programs. The waterway network with two specialized blocks, namely, routes and ports – wharfs, will also be planned to ensure the synchronization of route planning and ports – wharfs planning. ​​