Maersk‘s APM Terminals and Vietnam‘s Hateco Group have signed a non-binding agreement to hash out a plan to build a network of railway freight terminals across the Southeast Asian country.
The deal extends a partnership that already operates northern Vietnam’s largest deep-water container terminal in Hai Phong and is developing a second major port terminal farther south in Da Nang.
A memorandum of understanding was signed on Tuesday in Copenhagen within the framework of the Vietnam-Denmark Business Forum, during a state visit to Denmark by General Secretary and President To Lam.
Under the agreement, the two companies will jointly study and propose a railway freight terminal in Hai Phong that would include a cargo-handling center and storage yards. They will also examine three additional railway freight locations elsewhere in northern Vietnam whose sites have not yet been named.
According to a report from Vietnamese financial publication VnEconomy, the cooperation remains in the research and investment proposal stage. The specific scale and implementation plan will depend on the research results of both parties. There is no reported construction timetable or capacity proposal.
Hateco said the wider project aims to connect industrial parks, logistics hubs and production zones with major transport hubs, all while easing road congestion and expanding competitiveness for cross-border shipments. The facilities are expected to use digital systems for receiving, managing, storing and transshipping cargo.
The initiative comes as Vietnam ramps up infrastructure investment to support its multiyear double-digit economic growth target, with aims to reach 10 percent GDP growth in 2026 and 2027.
The country is pouring billions of dollars into upgrading its transportation and logistics networks. Railways sit near the top of that program, with construction under way on the standard-gauge Lao Cai-Hanoi-Hai Phong railway, a 390.9-kilometer (243-mile) line carrying passengers and freight from the Chinese border connection in Lao Cai to the Hai Phong Port set for completion by 2030. Vietnam’s National Assembly allocated $11 billion for the project.
Another major infrastructure initiative, the approved North-South high-speed railway, will run 1,541 kilometers (958 miles) between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City at an estimated cost of $67.3 billion. Completion is targeted for 2035. The railroad is intended as a passenger line that can move goods when required by the state for national security or international transit.
Trade volumes moving through Vietnam’s northern production base give the proposed APM-Hateco network a fast-growing cargo pool to draw from, with the country’s total goods trade reaching $888 billion in the first nine months of 2026, up 30.4 percent from a year earlier, according to the country’s National Statistics Office. Exports rose 24.5 percent to $434.3 billion while imports jumped 36.7 percent to $453.7 billion.
Although the Vietnamese government said in a press release that preliminary investment between the two sides is estimated at $3.5 billion, Maersk later clarified the plan will bring total investments in Vietnam by the ocean carrier and Hateco to between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion.
Maersk’s container terminal division and the Vietnamese conglomerate have recently been busy expanding their logistics infrastructure buildout across several areas in the country.
The companies celebrated the grand opening of Hateco Hai Phong International Container Terminal in April 2025, which added two new deep-water berths at the Lach Huyen complex within Hai Phong Port. Each berth can handle vessels carrying up to 18,000 20-foot equivalent units. The port project cost $400 million.
In April this year, the parties again teamed up to develop, build and operate a new deep-sea terminal in Da Nang, known as the Lien Chieu Container Port. That investment will cost $1.7 billion to build an eight-berth terminal estimated to handle more than 5.7 million TEUs per year, including the same 18,000-TEU-per-ship maximum.
APM and Hateco aim to go live in early 2029 starting with the first two berths and is scheduled for full completion in the first quarter of 2036.
Hateco recently also broke ground on the Giang Bien inland terminal in Hanoi, which will cost the firm roughly $98 million. That project will be developed over a 2.6-million-square-foot site in two phases, comprising six berths for general cargo and container vessels, along with storage yards, internal roads and supporting infrastructure.
The terminal is anticipated to handle 1 million metric tons of cargo annually, and help reduce logistics costs, promote inland waterway transportation and ease road congestion. Hateco forecasts that the inland port is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2029.