The Mayor of Busan, the largest seaport in the Republic of Korea (RoK), has underlined his support for setting up better communications between Saigon Port and Busan Port.

VPA Chairman and Director General of Saigon Port, Mr. Le Cong Minh, was elected by the IAPH Asia and Oceania region and unanimously approved and appointed by the biennial IAPH Conference in Genoa Italy on May 25-29, 2009 as Executive Committee member of the Association for the 2009-2011 term of office.

A delegation of large enterprises from Hamburg arrived in HCM City to evaluate business opportunities there late last week. Viet Nam News reporter Thu Tra spoke to the delegation leader, Senator Axel Gedaschko from Hamburg's office of the State Ministry for Economic and Labour Affairs, about co-operation potential between businesses of the two countries.

The SP-PSA International Port has opened to business in the southern coast province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, with the Singapore-flagged APL Alexandrite of nearly 60,000 DWT becoming the first ship to berth there last Thursday.

Vietnam’s central Danang port is estimated to have handled roughly 1.15 million tons of cargo in the first five months of this year, up some 3 per cent on-year.

Deep-water box terminal is ready for direct U.S. service. The first deep-water container terminal serving Vietnam's southern commercial hub opened Friday, clearing the way for direct service to the United States to begin this week, APL said.

Vietnam's first deep-water port for container ships in Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province, SP-PSA Port, opened May 29.

Shipping firms say they have been facing great difficulties since the beginning of 2009, while the government's demand stimulus packages have not helped much.

Terminal operator Scotto & Co. Srl (Neri Group) in the Port of Livorno, Italy, has recently commissioned a 100-tonne G HMK 4406 Mobile Harbour Crane from Gottwald Port Technology GmbH (Gottwald). This is the first Gottwald crane for Scotto. At the same time it is the first unit of Generation 5 Harbour Crane Model 4, launched by Gottwald at the end of 2007, to go into service in Italy, bringing the overall number of Model 4 cranes sold to date to 17.

THIS summer will see the Indonesia Port Corporation I, II, III and IV co-hosting the 7th ASEAN Ports and Shipping 2009 Exhibition and Conference at the Shangri-La Hotel in Jakarta from June 3-4.