A Canada-based fund-management company is channeling $27 million towards the expansion of the Cai Lan International Container Terminal (CICT) in northern Vietnam.

“Vietnam has been a real success story, but the lack of modern port infrastructure facilities has become a constraint on the country’s export-led growth,” said David Creighton, President and CEO of Cordiant Capital.

“Port capacity in Northern Vietnam is effectively full.”
 
He said the new deep water facilities being funded by Cordiant were strategically important to Vietnam.

"[The country] needs more deep water port capacity for its export industry to stay competitive.

"The development at Cai Lan will remove a bottleneck that could have threatened Vietnam’s position in regional and global supply chains.”

Cordiant  specialises in loans to the infrastructure sector in emerging markets.

The $27 million loan is being provided on behalf of the Infrastructure Crisis Facility Debt Pool.

The Infrastructure Crisis Facility Debt Pool was set up by the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to help make up for the collapse in emerging market infrastructure lending caused by the global banking crisis.
 
Cai Lan Port is close to Vietnam’s capital Hanoi and is one of the most important ports serving the North of the country.

According to CICT, container volume handled by ports in North Vietnam is increasing at over 20% a year.
 
The new port facilities are due to be built by the end of this year (2011).