In recent years, Viet Nam has maintained a high real GDP growth rate of 6-7% thanks to the Doi Moi policy of opening up to the world. With this strong economic growth and the expansion of the domestic market, cargo demand has continued to increase, making it essential to develop ports that can accommodate larger vessels and cope with growing cargo volumes.

　On the other hand, the Vietnamese Government has pledged to reduce public investment by using private funds or PPP schemes to carry out port development. Therefore, there is a need to develop and disseminate port technical standards and related guidelines to ensure proper port development and maintenance in the country.

　In the 1980s, many Vietnamese port standards were developed based on the standards of the former Soviet Union. Since the 1990s, in order to incorporate the rapid advances in technology into port development, Technical Standards and Commentaries for Port and Harbour Facilities in Japan, British Standards (BS) and the guidelines of the International Association of Ports and Navigation (PIANC) have been translated into Vietnamese and used by port engineers in Viet Nam.

　Since 2007, when the “Law on Standards and Technical Regulations” came into effect, Viet Nam has been restructuring its standards system in various fields. However, in the field of ports and harbors, there were no standards covering planning, design, construction, and maintenance in a comprehensive and consistent manner. To address this situation, the Vietnamese Ministry of Transport (MOT) and the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the development of technical standards for port and harbor facilities. Under this framework, Vietnamese port technical standards for design, construction, and maintenance have been developed based on the Technical Standards in Japan. Specifically, 10 national technical standards (TCVN) were developed and promulgated over a 10-year period from 2014 to 2023.

　The current project is a continuation of the previous work to create technical standards and will be implemented in two phases over a four-year period from August 2023 to July 2027. The first phase of the project is scheduled to be completed in July 2025.

　The overall goal, project purpose and outputs of this project are shown in Figure-1.

Fig-1 Overall goal, project purpose and outputs

The Technical Standards (TCVN) to be “revised and developed” for this project are:

Part 1 General Principle (revision of TCVN issued in 2017)

Part 2 Loads and Impacts (revision of TCVN issued in 2017)

Part 7 Navigation channels and harbor basins (newly developed)

Part 8 Docks, Locks, Slipways and Shipyards (newly developed)

Part 10 Other Port Facilities (newly developed)

Part 11 Concrete and Reinforced Concrete Structures (newly developed)

Note: The other port structures in Part 10 are single-mooring buoys, cruise terminals and marinas.

In addition, since it is difficult to design port facilities simply by developing technical standards, a design casebook with eight design case studies will be prepared. Furthermore, in order to properly maintain and manage the increasing number of port facilities, a maintenance manual explaining more specific maintenance methods is also under preparation.

The revision and formulation of the above technical standards (TCVN), as well as the preparation of the design casebook and the maintenance manual, are being carried out by forming working groups for each Part and each item. Each working group also holds workshops at designated stages and obtains a broad range of opinions from the many stakeholders who participate. All of these outputs will be prepared in English and Vietnamese versions.

　The first phase, currently underway, will focus on the revision and formulation of technical standards (TCVN), while the second phase will address the dissemination of the overall technical standards that have been developed.