Decree No. 1517/QD-TTg approving the master plan on development of Vietnam’s sea transport up to 2020, with orientations toward 2030.

This Decree approves the master plan on development of Vietnam’s sea transport up to 2020, with orientations toward 2030. The master plan has the following principal objectives: a) To promote to the utmost the country’s advantages in geographical position and natural conditions, especially marine potential, so as to develop sea transport in a comprehensive manner toward modernity, contributing to achieving the objectives set in Vietnam’s marine strategy up to 2020, creating a prerequisite for socio-economic development and national defense and security assurance, serving the national industrialization and modernization; b) To develop sea transport toward modernity, higher quality, reasonable expenses, safety, environmental pollution reduction, energy conservation and higher competitiveness to proactively integrate into and expand to the regional and international sea transport markets; c) To develop sea transport together with road, inland waterway, rail and air transport; to apply modern and advanced transport technologies; to attach importance to developing multimodal transport and logistic services so as to create a synchronous, uninterrupted and efficient transport system. The general objectives are: To improve the quality of sea transport services to assume domestic cargo transport and reduce the land transport load; to transport by sea most of the volume of imports and exports; and to participate in long-distance shipping routes and routes in North European and South American regions. To restore the North-South passenger transport route at an appropriate time in order to meet people’s travel demand. By 2020, to basically meet the national economy’s sea transport demand with high quality, reasonable costs and minimum environmental pollution.