Vietnam's deepwater capacity catches up: Cai Mep at 101% utilization, Lach Huyen breaking ground on six new berths

The Cai Mep - Thi Vai cluster operated at roughly 101% of nominal capacity in 2025. That is the polite Vietnamese way of saying terminals are working over design throughput, dwell is climbing, and shippers leaving south China for Vietnamese alternatives have been eating that congestion for the better part of two years. Loading and unloading service prices in the Cai Mep area are up roughly 10% effective February 1, 2026. The capacity is finally on the way - just not all of it in 2026.

Gemalink Phase 2: 1.7 to 3 million TEU

CMA CGM and Gemadept kicked off Phase 2 on the Gemalink terminal in late spring. The expansion adds 450 meters of quay, takes the yard from 32 to 44 hectares, and brings five additional ship-to-shore cranes for a total of 13. Capacity goes from 1.7 to roughly 3 million TEU when the work is delivered, with full handover in 2027. That is the single biggest piece of southern Vietnam capacity coming online in the next 24 months and it is already pre-allocated to the Ocean Alliance loops Gemalink supports.

Important to note: Gemalink Phase 2 is replacement-of-stretch capacity, not net-new headroom. Cai Mep collectively was running over design in 2025; the additional 1.3 million TEU at Gemalink absorbs roughly two years of organic growth on the cluster plus the structural lift from continued China-to-Vietnam migration. Don't expect Cai Mep handling charges to drop in 2027 - the new capacity gets absorbed before it relieves rate pressure. The relief that does materialize is dwell and gate-cycle predictability, which matters more to shippers running tight inventory than nominal handling cost.

Lach Huyen: the northern gateway

Hai Phong is starting construction on Lach Huyen berths 7 through 12 in 2026. Berths 7 and 8 are the Saigon Newport / CMA CGM $600 million joint venture targeting opening in 2028 with 1.9 million TEU annual capacity. The full berth 7-12 build-out targets 12-15 million TEU annually for the Lach Huyen complex. For shippers leaving Yantian and Shekou and going north, Hai Phong is the natural break-bulk and direct call alternative once the new berths are live. Until then, transshipment through Singapore or Hong Kong remains the workaround.

Northern Vietnam manufacturing - Bac Ninh, Hai Duong, Hung Yen - has been the fastest-growing piece of the country's electronics and apparel base since 2022. Samsung, Foxconn, Luxshare, and Goertek have all scaled meaningful capacity in the north and have been routing exports awkwardly through Cat Lai or Cai Mep down south because Lach Huyen could not yet handle the largest ships and the deeper-draft direct calls weren't yet filed. Berths 7-12 close that gap. Once the first new berth opens around 2028, expect mainline carriers to file direct Asia-USEC and Asia-USWC strings calling Lach Huyen instead of running a Hong Kong or Singapore feeder leg.

Lane implications

Three things to watch over the next 18 months. First, direct calls into Hai Phong from Asia-USEC and Asia-USWC strings will increase as Lach Huyen draft-restriction relief lets bigger ships in - berths 5 and 6 already accept 14,000 TEU vessels. Second, the Cai Mep tariff uplift will keep flowing through to BCOs as terminal handling charge increases for at least 2026. Third, transshipment through Cai Mep loses a piece of its margin once Singapore-via-Cai Mep workarounds get squeezed. The shipper lane optimization conversation right now should be: when does it make sense to switch from Yantian-via-Singapore to Hai Phong direct, and the answer is mostly 2027.

The forwarder play

Reps targeting US importers with current China origins should be teeing up the 2027-window conversation now. The argument is not "go to Vietnam," it is "map your factory shortlist against the new Hai Phong direct strings as they get filed." Forwarders that already have feeder networks into Cai Mep and meaningful FCL allocation will get the early conversion. The shippers most likely to switch in the next 12 months are mid-sized apparel, electronics accessories, and furniture importers running 100-500 FCL annually who are already running mixed China + Vietnam.

Inside LIT, this shows up as lane-level shipper monitoring on Vietnam origin codes. Reps watching the China-to-Vietnam migration pattern get pinged when a known China-origin shipper files their first Hai Phong or Cai Mep B/L, which is the cleanest possible signal for an outbound.