Ba Ria–Vung Tau, Aug. 13, 2025 — On the wharf, the heat bounces off the steel hulls of waiting ships. A crane operator swings a 40-foot container into place with the slow precision of someone who’s done it a thousand times. Nearby, foremen in wide-brimmed hats check manifests against a clipboard, shouting over the engine noise.
Cai Mep, one of Vietnam’s busiest deep-water ports, is adding extra night shifts this month. The aim: to keep pace with a wave of export bookings bound for North America and Europe. “We’re running close to the edge,” admitted one operations supervisor. “If we wait for peak season to make adjustments, it’ll be too late.”
Crews have been working around the clock to rearrange yard space, moving low-priority cargo to secondary storage and clearing prime slots for refrigerated containers. The change is already cutting dwell time for some shipments by more than a day.
Port planners say the strategy is temporary — but anyone who has worked a peak season here knows that once the rhythm sets in, it’s hard to slow down.
