The story was told by Cap Trong Cuong, CEO of the Vietnam Container Shipping JSC (Viconship) at a recent workshop organized by the Vietnam Logistics Association (VLA).

“We have infrastructure, human resources, and trust from foreign partners. But in fact, we are still hired workers,” Cuong said. 

Cuong pointed out problems with Vietnam's logistics, saying that support and linkages of Vietnamese enterprises are weak. 

There are many enterprises with large capitalization value and large networks, but their reciprocity is not high, which explains why Vietnam’s logistics sector cannot develop its great potential.

“This is also exactly why the logistics service fee in Vietnam is very high. Ironically, we compete with each other to lure foreign clients, offering low prices to scramble for foreign clients, but we offer higher prices to domestic clients,” Cuong said.

Talking about seaport services, he said he feels "shame" because Vietnam is a depressed area in the world in terms of port handling costs, and is inferior to Cambodia and Myanmar.

Cuong said that logistics companies need to cooperate and come up with reasonable solutions to cut costs. 

It is necessary to change technologies to satisfy the requirements of the market, striving for a green environment which fits modern times.

Tran Thanh Hai, deputy director of the Import-Export Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), said the number of logistics firms and the quality of logistics services are on the rise, thereby making great contributions to the record-high imports and exports of $732.5 billion in the first four months of 2022, an increase of 9.5 percent over 2021. 

Agility reported that in 2022, Vietnam ranked 11th among 50 emerging logistics markets in the world.

However, Hai said that Vietnam’s logistics industry has a lot of weaknesses, including high logistics costs, lack of connection among logistics firms and between logistics firms with manufacturing and business companies and import-export companies. Besides, the scale and financial capability of Vietnam’s logistics firms remain unstable, which makes it impossible for them to conquer overseas markets.

VILOG 2023, an international logistics exhibition, will be organized on August 10-12 in HCM City. This is the first exhibition of this kind to be held in Vietnam.

Duy Anh