Cat Lai Port in HCM City. The city is seeking to turn logistics into a key sector. (Photo: VNA)HCM City (VNS/VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City ismaking efforts to improve its logistic services to create a driving force forits economy as well as that of the southern key economic region.
With its strategic location, the city is animportant trade gateway for the country’s southern region, accounting for 85.2billion USD worth of imports and exports last year, or 17.7 percent of thecountry’s total.
Nguyen Quynh Trang, Deputy Director of the cityDepartment of Industry and Trade, said the city had relatively developedlogistics services and played a leading role in cargo transport for the southand the country as a whole.
It transhipped nearly 75 percent of the southernkey economic region’s goods and more than 20 percent of the country’s, she said.
According to the Vietnam Logistics BusinessAssociation, more than 70 percent of the country’s 3,000 logistics firms are inthe city, mainly operating in shipping and delivering, transportation,warehousing, ports, loading and unloading, distribution, customsclearance and integrated logistics services.
The city has more than 40 berths with a totallength of 14 km and 61 piers. Last year the volume of cargo passingthrough its ports increased by 9 percent and this year it is forecast to exceedthe capacity targeted next year.
But logistics development faces obstacles likeoverburdened roads and ports and lack of connectivity.
Le Duy Hiep, the association’s chairman, said highlogistics costs, inappropriate policies, tortuous administrative procedures andlack of qualified human resources, experience in supply chain management andfacilities were obstacles the city as well as the country in general shouldresolve soon.
Therefore, the city needed to focus on makingzoning plans for logistics infrastructure and invest more on developing itstransport system, especially inland waterway transport, and have a strategy todevelop human resources for the logistics industry, he said.
Recognising the importance of the logisticsindustry, the city government has tasked the Department of Industry and Tradeto develop a plan or it for until 2025.
The plan aims to develop logistics into a keyservice sector, develop the city into a regional transshipment port and reducelogistics costs.
Three logistics centres will be developed tobetter facilitate cargo transportation between the city and other localities,one each in the south and north and one for aviation.
The former two are expected to be at least 40hectares in size in 2020 and expanded to 70ha by 2030, and linked with portsand inland container depots in the city and Ba Ria-Vung Tau, railway stationsand industrial zones.
The aviation logistics centre at Tan Son NhatInternational Airport is expected to be at least 3-4 ha in the first phase and7-8ha in the second.
They will perform two roles: store, tranship andsupply goods to the city distribution systems and tranship goods to othercities and provinces and import and export goods through the city’s ports.
With its strategic location, the city is animportant trade gateway for the country’s southern region, accounting for 85.2billion USD worth of imports and exports last year, or 17.7 percent of thecountry’s total.
Nguyen Quynh Trang, Deputy Director of the cityDepartment of Industry and Trade, said the city had relatively developedlogistics services and played a leading role in cargo transport for the southand the country as a whole.
It transhipped nearly 75 percent of the southernkey economic region’s goods and more than 20 percent of the country’s, she said.
According to the Vietnam Logistics BusinessAssociation, more than 70 percent of the country’s 3,000 logistics firms are inthe city, mainly operating in shipping and delivering, transportation,warehousing, ports, loading and unloading, distribution, customsclearance and integrated logistics services.
The city has more than 40 berths with a totallength of 14 km and 61 piers. Last year the volume of cargo passingthrough its ports increased by 9 percent and this year it is forecast to exceedthe capacity targeted next year.
But logistics development faces obstacles likeoverburdened roads and ports and lack of connectivity.
Le Duy Hiep, the association’s chairman, said highlogistics costs, inappropriate policies, tortuous administrative procedures andlack of qualified human resources, experience in supply chain management andfacilities were obstacles the city as well as the country in general shouldresolve soon.
Therefore, the city needed to focus on makingzoning plans for logistics infrastructure and invest more on developing itstransport system, especially inland waterway transport, and have a strategy todevelop human resources for the logistics industry, he said.
Recognising the importance of the logisticsindustry, the city government has tasked the Department of Industry and Tradeto develop a plan or it for until 2025.
The plan aims to develop logistics into a keyservice sector, develop the city into a regional transshipment port and reducelogistics costs.
Three logistics centres will be developed tobetter facilitate cargo transportation between the city and other localities,one each in the south and north and one for aviation.
The former two are expected to be at least 40hectares in size in 2020 and expanded to 70ha by 2030, and linked with portsand inland container depots in the city and Ba Ria-Vung Tau, railway stationsand industrial zones.
The aviation logistics centre at Tan Son NhatInternational Airport is expected to be at least 3-4 ha in the first phase and7-8ha in the second.
They will perform two roles: store, tranship andsupply goods to the city distribution systems and tranship goods to othercities and provinces and import and export goods through the city’s ports.
The city plans to accelerate the construction ofkey infrastructure projects to boost the logistics industry in the nextdecade.-VNS/VNA
VNA
