Expected to cover 69 hectares near the Cat Lai Port, the center will help optimize export costs for enterprises and Saigon IPD plans to kick off construction of the center early next year.

Quang Minh, general director of Saigon IPD, last Friday told the Daily land rents will be around US$100 million while US$70 million will be spent constructing warehouses, goods markets and trans-shipment areas.

Saigon IPD has submitted the logistics center project to the city’s government while it has almost completed compensation for affected households. The enterprise expects to start work on the project early next year to create a complete linkage of logistics services.

As Cat Lai Port is an important gateway especially in seaport system restructuring and development, building a logistics center at the area will help optimize costs for export goods, facilitate goods circulation and connect transport, forwarding and receipt and clearance services into a reasonable chain.

Construction of the logistics center is part of the city’s export goods mechanism improvement program in the 2011-2015 period. Tan Cang-Cat Lai Port currently holds a 50% market share of export-import container goods of the country and around 75% among ports in HCMC.

Concerning the program, the city targets export revenue growth of 13% yearly and the total export value of around US$137 billion between 2011 and 2015, doubling that of the 2006-2010 period.

As of July, the city had seen three products - apparel, footwear and electronics appliances - reporting an export value of over US$1 billion each. They will remain key export goods of the city in coming years.