The business conditions cause "trouble" for the logistic enterprises

Some regulations on the transport documents or regulations on the number of vehicles ... were considered by the logistic enterprises as unnecessary regulations and recommended not to apply these regulations. Picture: collected.

Unrealistic regulations

Commenting on the provisions of the draft Decree on the business and transportation conditions for cars, a representatives of logistic enterprises, Mr. Tran Duc Nghia, Deputy Director of Customs and Trade Facility, Member of Executive Committee of Vietnam Association of Logistics Services (VLA) said that there were still many inappropriate and unfavorable regulations for enterprises. For example, it is unnecessary to issue and use a transport document for the transportation units and drivers when transporting the goods, because all goods on the road must have one or more other types of documents to prove the legality of the transported goods. This was the responsibility of the charterer and the carrier.

Besides, there was the regulation that the car badges will be revoked in one month if the transport enterprises do not carry out maintenance and repair according to regulations. According to Mr. Nghia, this has no practical value. Because for the transportation businesses, the largest fixed assets were vehicles, namely cars and trailers. The business efficiency of transportation depended on the capacity of the vehicles. Therefore, regardless of small businesses (currently, 72.4% of businesses had less than 5 cars) or large businesses, the repair and maintenance activities were always considered as the focal point of transport operations. This was the self-need of transport enterprises, so it was unnecessary to regulate on this. The way of doing maintenance and repair of the enterprises was different, so it was very troublesome for the enterprises when they forced to comply with a specific regulation of the Ministry of Transport for this issue. "Therefore, we recommend reviewing this regulation to avoid the risk of penalties for unreasonable reasons,“ Mr. Nghia said.

Retain regulation on compensation levels

Noticeably, earlier, in the draft Decree on the business and transport business conditions for old cars, the regulation on liability limitation of the transporters in compensation of damaged goods and loss and deficiencies of goods was 70,000/kg of lost goods, unless otherwise agreed between the transport dealers and customers using the service. However, in the Draft submitted to the Prime Minister, this regulation was abandoned and the settlement of the dispute was transferred to the Court or for arbitration without a specific agreement in the transportation contract.

According to Mr. Nguyen Dai Duong, Director of TLL Logistic Joint Stock Company, the liability limitation was specified in the Vietnam Maritime Code, Vietnam Aviation Law and in Decree 87/2009/ND-CP on multimodal transport and Decree 163/2017/ND-CP on logistic service business. If the liability limitation of the carrier was removed, the transport company would have compensated on the actual value of the shipment and this limit would have been applied automatically. On the other hand, if there was the liability limitation of the carrier, the carrier's liability limits would have been applied optionally between the customer and the transport operator.

"Given the fact that most of the car transport businesses are small businesses (with less than 5 cars), with a weak financial capacity, I recommend setting a maximum limit of 70,000 VND/kg as in the old draft. The regulation on this limit will help the parties to take measures to prevent the business risks and take the appropriate measures to manage the risk” Mr. Duong said.

In addition, Mr. Duong also said that the value of the shipment was not based on the declaration by the owners, because the transport enterprises were only the transport units and they could not value accurately the shipments. In the event of damage or loss without a specific limit of liability, the transport enterprises would suffer great losses.