The Adani Group is planning to build a port in Vietnam in a move to develop overseas infrastructure and tap into opportunities from the increasing trade surrounding that region, Bloomberg reported. This will be the conglomerate’s fourth international port after Haifa in Israel, Colombo in Sri Lanka and the Tanzania port of Dar es Salaam.
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. (APSEZ), India’s largest port operator, got an “in-principle approval from the Vietnamese government” to develop a port from scratch in Da Nang, Vietnam, said Karan Adani, managing director of the company and the elder son of Gautam Adani in an interview.
“The idea is to make India a maritime hub,” he said. “We are targeting countries that are high on manufacturing or high on population, which will lead to high consumption. We are focusing on export volumes in these countries.”
The project is in the early planning stages and the total investment required hasn’t been finalised, the report read.
Adani Ports currently gets about 5% of its total trade volume from international operations and wants to increase the ratio to 10% by 2030, according to the Bloomberg report, which cited Karan Adani.
This comes after Karan Adani said that the first phase of the Vizhinjam port in Kerala will be completed by December and the port will be fully ready by 2028-29, with an investment of ₹20,000 crore by the company and the Kerala government.
The company was to start operations by 2018 itself, but the project got delayed due to land acquisition issues.
This is an important port as its proximity to international shipping routes can help India rival Dubai, Singapore and Sri Lanka.
The company is also looking at the Middle East, Southeast Asia, East Africa, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Vietnam and Cambodia for international project opportunities as these regions engage in a lot of trade with India, he said.
