Along the 3,200km-long coastline, Vietnam has a significant number of seaports, which are relatively large and named as the keys to economic development. However, most ports are relatively small with obsolete facilities and poor supporting services. Among three largest ports countrywide, Ho Chi Minh City seaport has had the highest throughput and productivity per annum of the country for years, assumed the role of the major port in the south, where cargos and containers come and go from all industrial parks in the southern region. Situated on what was the outskirts but is now the outskirts or suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City, it has however shown some drawbacks, i.e., expansion of the port is not an option regardless of the high throughput. Apart from the inadequate infrastructure, ports are facing another setback due to backward pricing. The rapid increase in number of ports also created a “race to the bottom” situation, where Vietnam ports have reduced their price to attract customers. The direct results are lower service quality and an inability to reinvest into port development. Therefore, the restructuring of Ho Chi Minh City seaport system has been launched since 2006 whereby the plan not only resolves the limited size, obsolete facilities and traffic issues, but also becomes more efficient as the new port complex is located conveniently among the region’s industrial parks and export processing zones of Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, and Ba Ria – Vung Tau. In line with this plan, the paper will mainly aim to provide the outstanding constraints which Ho Chi Minh City seaport system faced, including illogical distribution among ports/terminals regardless the scale, capacity and geographic locations; ineffective and insecured mooring and anchorage buoys; undeveloped logistic services centres and lack of connecting infrastructure. As so, the recommendations for single issue will be provided.

1. Introduction
2. Major constraints in investment, managing and exploiting Ho Chi Minh City seaport system
    2.1. Ports and terminals infrastructure
    2.2. Mooring buoys, anchorage areas
    2.3. Models of port management in Ho Chi Minh City
3. SWOT evaluation of Ho Chi Minh City seaport management
    3.1. Strength
    3.2. Weakness
    3.3. Opportunity
    3.4. Threats
4. Recommendations for enhancing operation efficiency at Ho Chi Minh City seaport system
    4.1. Policy in port construction
    4.2. Recommendations for management models
    4.3. Recommendations on strategic planning of seaports and connecting infrastructure
5. Conclusion
References

• Xuan Phuong Nguyen(Ho Chi Minh city University of Transport) Corresponding Author
• Van Tai Pham(College of Foreign Economic Relations (COFER))