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    Facilitating Trade Through Competitive, Low-Carbon Transport: The Case for Vietnam's Inland and Coastal Waterways
    Facilitating Trade Through Competitive, Low-Carbon Transport: The Case for Vietnam's Inland and Coastal Waterways
    Facilitating Trade Through Competitive, Low-Carbon Transport: The Case for Vietnam's Inland and Coastal Waterways
    Ebook364 pages3 hours

    Facilitating Trade Through Competitive, Low-Carbon Transport: The Case for Vietnam's Inland and Coastal Waterways

    By Luis C. Blancas and M. Baher El-Hifnawi

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    Like many of its Southeast Asian neighbors, Vietnam faces the twin challenges of sustaining economic growth and protecting the environment. On the one hand, the impressive poverty reduction and growth performance attained over the past 25 years is now challenged by slower global and domestic growth, more intense international competition for foreign direct investment, and the need to drive domestic productivity improvements. On the other, Vietnam’s vast natural resources—as represented by two major river deltas, a long coast line, and a multitude of rivers and canals—and the large portion of its population leaving in proximity to bodies of water or dependent upon water- and weather-driven sectors of the economy, such as rice production and aquaculture, demand that decisive steps be taken to reduce the carbon intensity of the Vietnamese economy. This report argues that promoting the use of waterborne transport in Vietnam’s freight logistics can be an effective way of both facilitating economic growth and reducing the emission of greenhouse gases and local pollutants. In particular, it shows that investments in capacity expansion and better maintenance provision at the country’s main navigable waterways and coastal shipping routes can result in logistics cost savings, which promote trade and drive growth. But they would also result in meaningfully lower emissions in a sector that remains less green than it could be, on account of the use of relatively small and inefficient vessels. The report offers three main contributions. First, by profiling Vietnam’s inland waterway sector it sheds light on a critical component of the economy that has nevertheless remained opaque. Second, it proposes and quantitatively assesses well-defined public- and public-private investment opportunities in waterborne transport that can improve sector performance. And third, it explicitly takes into account the value of changes in local pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions in a preliminary economic appraisal of the interventions proposed. As the need to strengthen Vietnam’s trade competitiveness intensifies, the inland waterway and coastal shipping sectors, often overlooked, can be part of the reform and modernization agenda. This report intends to contribute to that important conversation.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWorld Bank Publications
    Release dateDec 18, 2013
    ISBN9781464801068
    Facilitating Trade Through Competitive, Low-Carbon Transport: The Case for Vietnam's Inland and Coastal Waterways

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      Book preview

      Facilitating Trade Through Competitive, Low-Carbon Transport - Luis C. Blancas

      DIRECTIONS IN DEVELOPMENT

      Countries and Regions

      Facilitating Trade through Competitive, Low-Carbon Transport

      The Case for Vietnam’s Inland and Coastal Waterways

      Luis C. Blancas and M. Baher El-Hifnawi

      © 2014 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank

      1818 H Street NW, Washington DC 20433

      Telephone: 202-473-1000; Internet: www.worldbank.org

      Some rights reserved

      1 2 3 4 16 15 14 13

      This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. Note that The World Bank does not necessarily own each component of the content included in the work. The World Bank therefore does not warrant that the use of the content contained in the work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. The risk of claims resulting from such infringement rests solely with you.

      The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries.

      Nothing herein shall constitute or be considered to be a limitation upon or waiver of the privileges and immunities of The World Bank, all of which are specifically reserved.

      Rights and Permissions

      This work is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY 3.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0. Under the Creative Commons Attribution license, you are free to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt this work, including for commercial purposes, under the following conditions:

      Attribution—Please cite the work as follows: Blancas, Luis C., and M. Baher El-Hifnawi. 2014. Facilitating Trade through Competitive, Low-Carbon Transport: The Case for Vietnam’s Inland and Coastal Waterways. Directions in Development. Washington, DC: World Bank. doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0105-1. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0

      Translations—If you create a translation of this work, please add the following disclaimer along with the attribution: This translation was not created by The World Bank and should not be considered an official World Bank translation. The World Bank shall not be liable for any content or error in this translation.

      All queries on rights and licenses should be addressed to the Office of the Publisher, The World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; fax: 202-522-2625; e-mail: [email protected].

      ISBN (paper): 978-1-4648-0105-1

      ISBN (electronic): 978-1-4648-0106-8

      DOI: 10.1596/978-1-4648-0105-1

      Cover photo: © Tran Thi Hoa / World Bank

      Cover design: Debra Naylor

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Blancas, Luis C., author. Facilitating trade through competitive, low carbon transport : the case for Vietnam’s inland and coastal waterways / Luis C. Blancas and M. Baher El-Hifnawi.

           pages cm — (Directions in development / World Bank)

        Includes bibliographical references.

      ISBN 978-1-4648-0105-1 (alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4648-0106-8

      1. Inland water transportation—Vietnam—Economic aspects. 2. Coastal water transportation—Vietnam—Economic aspects. I. El-Hifnawi, M. Baher, author. II. Title. III. Series: Directions in development (Washington, D.C.)

      HE884.5.B53 2013

      333.91’509597—dc23

      2013039699

      Contents

      Foreword

      Vietnam’s economic achievements of the past 25 years are impressive. Market-based reforms that were initiated in 1986 and continue to be perfected to this day pave the way for rapid and sustained economic growth. At the same time, pro-poor social policies address access to basic services and economic resources such as land combined with strong growth to dramatically reduce the incidence of poverty, from 58 percent in the early 1990s to approximately 10 percent today. By 2012, Vietnam had transitioned from being a low-income nation to attaining lower middle-income status.

      This is a remarkable success story of development. Yet much remains to be done to continue building on the achievements of the past two and a half decades. In particular, Vietnam faces the challenge of further promoting economic growth, while also reducing the carbon intensity of its economy.

      With a vast coast line, two large river deltas, and an economic structure led in part by weather-dependent sectors such as rice and coffee cultivation and aquaculture, Vietnam is among the countries most exposed to the impacts of climate change. Finding ways to support low-carbon growth strategies should be seen as a critical component of any long-term plan toward building Vietnam’s future development trajectory.

      The need to drive long-term, sustained growth continues to be imperative as well. In the wake of the economic crisis of 2008–09 and the protracted period of stagnant growth in Western Europe—a key Vietnam export market—domestic growth has slowed while the global competition to attract foreign direct investment has intensified. Many of those who have been lifted out of poverty remain close to the poverty line and under risk of falling back into poverty if past growth is not sustained. Increasing competitiveness and lowering the cost of doing business are two ways in which Vietnam can generate new sources of future growth.

      This report argues that promoting inland waterway transportation and coastal shipping offers Vietnam a path of lower-carbon growth. Waterborne transport captures a significant share of the freight tonnage moved daily in Vietnam. Yet many waterways remain constrained in depth and width, their banks unprotected and their maintenance underfunded. The vessels used on these waterways remain small by international standards, reducing fuel efficiency per ton transported and limiting the environmental advantages of such equipment. Multimodal connections linked to the waterways could also be improved, which can reduce transportation and logistics costs.

      Another contribution of the report is that it explicitly takes into account local pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions when economically assessing infrastructure and policy-based interventions in the inland waterway sector. This type of analysis will likely increasingly become the norm in the appraisal of transportation projects around the world, and not least in developing countries, in much the same way as it is already happening in the energy sector.

      I hope the report can help

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