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Trucks travel in and out of Cat Lai port. Photo: T.H

Green channel for import and export goods transportation

According to Le Duy Hiep, President of VLA, the Government has issued solutions, guiding documents and guidelines to ensure the dual goal of fighting the pandemic while maintaining and developing the economy. However, the process of implementing the guiding documents has not been synchronized, revealing many inadequacies, causing many transportation and production activities to stall due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

To maintain the transport and logistics chain for production and business activities, logistics enterprises have proposed many solutions to remove difficulties to promote production and business for logistics service enterprises.

Accordingly, VLA requests the Government to approve the proposal in Official Letter No. 4482/BCT-TTTN of the Ministry of Industry and Trade on promulgating a list of goods "prohibited from circulation" instead of listing "essential goods".

However, in order to ensure effectiveness and efficiency, VLA recommends that the Government leader or the Minister, Chairman of the Government Office sign the promulgation in order to be followed and applied uniformly throughout the country, thereby avoiding difficulties for businesses.

Secondly, VLA suggested that the People's Committees of provinces and cities where international sea and air border gates are located must prioritize the allocation of "green channels" for import and export goods, so that there is no delay in connection with scheduled trains, planes, or raw materials not arriving at the factory in time, causing production disruptions.

Third, VLA suggested that the Government and localities consider giving priority to vaccination for workers directly engaged in logistics services at seaports, airports, warehouses, carrying out procedures for loading and unloading goods to ensure continuous logistics activities in the goods supply chain to avoid disruptions, especially at international ports.

Fourth, according to a report on the congestion and overloading of Cat Lai port, which is operated and managed by Saigon Newport Corporation, seriously affecting import and export activities, directly affecting the ports. Transport and logistics businesses, VLA support the measures proposed by Saigon Newport and respectfully request the Government to have appropriate policies to allow the release of thousands of containers left behind at the port. Cat Lai and a number of major ports are now overdue for storage at the port according to regulations.

At the same time, implementing necessary solutions to regulate container shipping lines to the port area that has been invested and built and in accordance with the planning still has excess capacity in the area of ​​District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, such as Hiep Phuoc, Tan Thuan, Ben Nghe.

Reduce logistics costs

According to Le Duy Hiep, through the incident with Cat Lai Port (as well as in early 2019), VLA believes that the Maritime Administration needs to promote the regulatory role between sea port areas ​​to ensure smooth circulation of goods in the context that the capacity of ports in HCMC and neighboring areas have not been fully exploited.

At the same time, VLA proposes to change the customs supervision procedure in the direction of trade facilitation, allowing businesses to declare general customs by province, city or larger area and bring goods to other destinations. Customs clearance points in the region under the supervision of Customs as is the practice of Western Europe-North America countries, will reduce congestion and overloading at gateway ports.

VLA proposed that the Government have a policy to control the amount of goods in the city and bring them to new places. Dredging channels so that ports in Hiep Phuoc area can promote their functions, reduce pressure on Cat Lai port, ensure efficient exploitation of existing ports (minimum 75% capacity); maintain the overall operation of the logistics chain stably in all situations.

In terms of reducing logistics costs, VLA recommends not to apply policies that increase logistics costs in general, such as collecting seaport infrastructure fees in Ho Chi Minh City from October 1 and reducing fees for seaport infrastructure in Hai Phong.

Regarding difficulties of foreign shipping lines increasing freight rates, affecting the production, import and export of goods, VLA proposes to industry associations, VLA and Association of Maritime Brokerage Agents, the Vietnam Seaport Association and VCCI have coordinated and cooperated with each other and with member enterprises in exchanging information on the situation of freight rates, empty containers and professional activities in saving freight rates and reducing maritime surcharges.

Request the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Home Affairs to strengthen the Shippers Association to represent shippers in fighting carriers in terms of freight rates, storage, etc. in the current market. This is an urgent requirement today to help businesses reduce difficulties.

Request the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Finance to have effective guidance in the implementation of legal documents such as Decree 146 on declaration of sea freight charges by foreign container shipping lines and limit the current uncontrolled increase in freight rates. At the same time, there are measures to reduce or eliminate some of the current 12 types of high sea freight surcharges. This is an urgent problem that our country's import-export and manufacturing enterprises are asking to be solved. VLA proposed the Ministry of Industry and Trade to investigate and consider related shipping alliances under Vietnam's Competition Law.

Along with that, the Government has decided to develop shipping with a Vietnamese brand. Specifically, developing a fleet of large-sized container ships for long-distance business such as the Americas and Europe, partly meeting Vietnam's import and export transport requirements, as proposed by the Vietnam Logistics Service Business Association.