There is a reality that the logistics model formed decades ago has fulfilled its historical mission. At that time, ports, ICDs and warehouses located near the center helped promote import and export, support industrial development and reduce transportation costs.
But the city has changed, areas that were once suburban areas have now become densely populated residential centers. Schools, hospitals, and residential areas have sprung up around ports and container depots, while the volume of goods is increasing.
The fact that tens of thousands of container trucks pass through residential areas every day is one of the factors causing congestion, accidents, and environmental pollution. These damages are silently eroding the city's competitiveness.
Therefore, what needs to be done is not only to relocate a few ports or warehouses, but to restructure the entire logistics system.
The strength of the Southeast region today lies not in a single port but in the ability to connect regions, the belt system, expressways, and inland waterways are also gradually being completed. This is a suitable time to re-assign the roles of each port and each logistics center according to their own advantages instead of letting goods continue to pour into the inner city area.
A modern city cannot let containers and motorbikes compete for the road surface. Many developed cities in the world have built their own logistics corridors, separating freight transport from residential areas.
What public opinion is concerned about is how the riverside land fund will be used after relocation. These are very valuable land areas, if the port is only replaced by high-rise buildings, commercial centers and population pressure continues to increase, the congestion problem will return in a different form.
Ho Chi Minh City needs to be steadfast in its orientation of developing green spaces, public transport, riverside corridors and community-serving works. This land fund must create living value, not just commercial value.
More importantly, the entire process of land valuation, investor selection and use of revenue from land funds after relocation must be carried out publicly and transparently. That is the condition to create social consensus and turn land resources into development resources.
Relocating the port from the inner city is not just a story of the transportation or logistics sector, it is a major restructuring of the city's development space.
