11 - Greater Mekong Subregion: Is the Mekong River shipping competitive with other modes?

Abstract

This chapter reviews the current status of international transport in Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), particularly traffic routes to/from Cambodia, and analyses the potential impact of infrastructure improvement and other related policies on international logistics in Cambodia. Particularly, the authors focus on the inland waterway transport (IWT) connecting Phnom Penh (PP) and Ho Chi Minh (HCM) via the Lower Mekong Delta and identify obstacles and issues which need to be addressed for enhancing barge navigation along the Mekong River, including infrastructure, administration, and operation of the IWT. Thus, simulations of the proposed measures to facilitate IWT are examined by using the intermodal cargo flow assignment model. As a result, the model could describe well the actual shares of the route of hinterland transport (or gateway port) for Cambodian international laden containers. Moreover, the expected impacts in the simulation are reasonable as a whole; the improvement of IWT will increase its share, whereas the change of road transport conditions will bring both positive and negative impacts on its share. Although the simulations described in this chapter only focus on the reduction in shipping cost through the real 24-h-a-day operation at the national border and the vessel enlargement, more additional facilitations between two countries, including not only the policies mentioned above but also the improvement of river channels and canals, could reduce more the shipping cost and time. Additionally, increasing the number of ports covered by IWT services in both Cambodia and Vietnam, not only the PP port, will raise the viability of the service, although the cabotage issue should be solved.