Vehicles have to queue up for hours 

Local newspapers report that thousands of trucks and container vehicles on the first days of 2018 had to queue for hours to enter Cat Lai Port in HCM City. 

Transportation firms complained of losses and late deliveries as well as traffic congestion.  

Lam Dai Vinh from Transport Company in HCM City said transport service providers are burdened with many kinds of taxes and fees, including tolls and BOT (build, operation, transfer) fees. 

The toll alone is VND17 million, applied to tractor-trailers with 40 tonnage and more. The vehicles only run nine months a year.

Do Xuan Phu, director of Minh Lien Transport Company, said the situation for transport firms is ‘tragic’: there is not much cargo to carry, while the freight has decreased as transport firms scramble for clients. 

“Losses are anticipated, but we still have to work. If we don’t, we won’t have money to pay bank debts,” Phu said, adding that he has to cut the number of vehicles and staff, but the situation has not improved because of heavy taxes and fees, especially road taxes and fees at BOT stations.

Phu estimates that there are 5 fee collection stations in HCMC and 10 others in neighboring provinces. The stations are located 4-20 kilometers from each other. 

Under MOF’s (Ministry of Finance) regulations, the minimum distance between two stations must be 70 kilometers.

According to the HCM City Cargo Transportation Association, there were more than 2,000 cargo transport firms in 2017 in the city, including 18,000 container vehicles (up by 28 percent compared with 2016), more than 22,000 trucks with 3.5 tonnage and more (up by 76 percent).

Meanwhile, the total volume of goods going through seaports was 105 million tons only, a modest increase of 4.5 percent. The volume of goods going through river ports was 29 million tons, up by 12 percent and the volume of goods carried by land was 406 million tons, up by 7.5 percent. 

The figures show that while the number of vehicles has increased, the volume of goods rose modestly, leading to supply-demand imbalance.

In reply to transport firms’ proposals to relocate BOT fee collection stations, cut BOT fees and road taxes, Tran Quang Lam, deputy director of the HCM City Transport Department, said the department will suggest adjustments to HCM City authorities soon.

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