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Lack of port logistics causes annual loss of US$1.7bil
Vietnam faces an extra cost of more than US$1.7 billion as the lack of port logistics leads local companies to have their shipments transshipped via ports in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Nguyen Tuan Hoa, deputy director of the Development Study Center under the HCMC government, said total throughput at Vietnam ports amounted to about 178 million tons, including 4.3 million TEUs.
Logistic fees in developed countries are much higher than in developing countries like Vietnam, said Hoa, who has been joining hands with other scientists to undertake a study on logistics development in HCMC.
He said logistics expenses in the United States made up 9.5% of GDP, 11% in Japan, 16% in South Korea, 21.6% in China and 25% of GDP in Vietnam.
Vietnam's spending on logistics services last year totaled about US$17 billion while GDP was US$71 billion, he said at an international conference on logistics risk management in HCMC last Thursday.
He said logistics played a major role in the economic development of a country which depends heavily on exports.
There are 800-900 businesses active in the logistics field but a majority of them are in HCMC where the logistics market has a yearly value of US$12 billion, 60% of the country's total, while 70% of import and export shipments transit through HCMC.
Le Van Bay, an expert in logistics at the HCMC University of Technical Education, said most logistics services companies in Vietnam were not yet specialized, thus lacking professionalism.
Hoa said the country now had 114 seaports, most of them small, and that only 14 were considered internationally moderate such as Haiphong, Cat Lai and VICT, but they were only riverports.
"We are lacking deep-water ports serving as international transshipment points, so Vietnam's exports are transshipped to Hong Kong or Singapore before heading for foreign markets," said Hoa.
Consequently, for every container of Vietnam's export goods, local businesses have to pay an extra charge for transshipment of US$400.
VNN
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