Hai Phong welcomes the trend to become a modern international logistics center

Hai Phong is the largest port city in the North, an important traffic hub and the main door to the sea of ​​the Northern provinces, converging all the conditions to become a logistics service center.

With a favorable geographical position and well-invested, professional exploitation and operation infrastructure, Nam Hai Dinh Vu Port has grown strongly.

Logistics is gradually becoming a spearhead service industry of many countries around the world.

Catching this trend, Hai Phong focuses on exploiting the available advantages of a city that meets 5 types of traffic to soon become a major maritime and shipping service center of the country.

The key to growth

Director of Hai Phong Department of Planning and Investment Nguyen Hoang Long shared that a locality with a large coastline, sea and island, located in the sea strategy of the country with 126km of coastline and more than 4,000km2 of sea area, Hai Phong is the the largest city in the North, an important traffic hub and the main gate to the sea of ​​the Northern provinces, fully meeting the conditions to become a logistics service center.

Hai Phong's logistics infrastructure system has high connectivity between modes of transport by road, railway, inland waterway, sea and air, which makes it very convenient to connect multimodal transport awake.

Regarding seaport infrastructure, Hai Phong focuses on upgrading and investing in new construction of seaport infrastructure in a synchronous and modern direction, in line with the development trend of regional and international shipping; completed and put into operation wharves No. 1, 2, Hai Phong international gateway port.

Transport infrastructure - a lever to change the face of the port city

The Prime Minister has also approved the investment policy of the investment project to build wharves 3, 4, 5 and 6 in Lach Huyen port area. Currently, the city's seaport system includes 5 wharves with 98 wharves of all kinds and 8 main navigational passages, basically meeting the reception of large ships coming in and out.

Basic road traffic system to connect seaports with industrial parks, service zones, inland port systems, connecting with many northern provinces and cities and two corridors, one belt of Vietnam- China.

In particular, in the past 5 years, many large projects located on National Highways and urban trunk routes have been invested and built, effectively serving the transport of goods through ports in Dinh Vu and Lach Huyen areas such as: : Hanoi - Hai Phong highway, Tan Vu - Lach Huyen road and car bridge, Hai Phong - Ha Long highway...

Along with that, Cat Bi airport was invested to build and upgrade to a level 4E international airport, ensuring the operation of B747 aircraft, and a parking lot to ensure 10 parking positions for A321 aircraft/hour. At peak times, the terminal has a capacity of 4-5 million passengers/year.

The system of warehouses and yards for logistics services in the city is distributed centrally along the Cam River area (the area of ​​Hoang Dieu port cluster, Chua Ve port, Dinh Vu port...).

The total area of ​​warehouses and yards reaches more than 700ha with more than 60 main warehouses including warehouse systems at seaports; bonded; warehouse systems at retail collection points, centralized inspection locations and other common and cold storage systems.

Logistics infrastructure investment resources are interested in Hai Phong with the total investment capital made in the area in the 2016-2020 period reaching VND 562,309 billion, nearly 3 times higher than the period 2011-2015 (VND 188.356 billion); in which, the investment capital in the transport and warehousing industry reached VND 133,550 billion, accounting for 23.75% of the total realized investment capital of the whole city, the average growth rate of 20.03%/year.

Up to this point, the city has 28 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects in the field of transport services, warehousing, logistics with a total registered capital of 116.1 million USD; in which, there are a number of prominent projects: C.Steinweg Hai Phong Company Limited (USD 40 million), Sembcorp Hai Phong Infrastructure Services Company Limited (USD 20.7 million), SITC Dinh Vu Logistics Limited Liability Company (20 million USD), SLP Park Hai Phong 2 Project (17.26 million USD)...

There are still bottlenecks

Although Hai Phong is considered to have a lot of potential for the development of the logistics service industry, in reality, logistics activities here have not developed commensurate with the potential and still have many shortcomings.

According to Hai Phong Port Authority, for the Hai Phong seaport area, there has been a remarkable development in both quality and quantity over the past time, meeting the requirements of socio-economic development and international economic integration. and region; established an important position and link in the global maritime route.

However, the system of ports and bridges is mostly scattered on the banks of Cam and Bach Dang rivers.

In addition to Dinh Vu and Lach Huyen wharf areas (2 wharfs in Hai Phong international gateway port (HICT port) with large-scale and modern invested wharfs), there are many small and small-scale ports. fragmented, inadequate, mixed residential areas, functional subdivisions are not reasonable.

The traffic connection system is limited, not centralized and synchronous, causing waste of land resources and generating traffic jams behind the port, congestion of goods at the port at peak times, causing disorder and traffic safety. traffic in the area...

From the perspective of businesses, Mr. Le Van Tien, Chairman of Hai Phong Transport Association, said that the transport system connecting inland waterway ports with roads (national highways, provinces) and railways is still inadequate. , lack of synchronization in road and bridge loads. Many provincial roads go to local investment only to meet small transport vehicles, large vehicles such as containers cannot participate in transportation if there are trucks, loading and unloading many lanes.

This makes the organization of transportation of goods from the port to the national highways facing many difficulties, incurs many costs, making the price of water transport still higher than that of road, unattractive to customers. At the same time, limiting the development of inland waterway transport and logistics services...

Dinh Vu-Cat Hai sea-crossing bridge is the longest sea-crossing bridge in Vietnam with a width of 29.5m with 4 lanes (2 lanes for motor vehicles and 2 lanes for rudimentary vehicles).

According to statistics, the volume of goods transported by road in 2020 accounts for 78.7% of the total volume of goods transported in the city (constantly increasing over the years: 69.9% in 2015; in 2018 accounted for 74% and in 2020 accounted for 78.7%).

Along with the inadequacy of connection infrastructure, many overlapping policies on taxes, fees and charges arise for transport enterprises, leading to increased input costs in the transport industry, and still higher transport costs than other countries. in the area.

Keeping up with the trend

On October 21, 2021, the People's Committee of Hai Phong City issued Plan 238/KH-UBND to implement Resolution No. 02-NQ/TU dated August 2, 2021 of the Standing Board of Hai Phong City Party Committee. Department on development of service activities serving seaport operations, logistics services to 2025, 2030 and vision to 2045 and Decision No. 221/QD-TTg dated February 22, 2021 of the Prime Minister amending and supplementing Decision No. 200/QD-TTg dated February 14, 2017 on approving the Action Plan to improve competitiveness and develop logistics services in Vietnam to 2025.

This plan has proposed 6 main groups of tasks and solutions, including: improving the efficiency of state management; developing seaport infrastructure and connecting traffic infrastructure; develop seaport services and logistics services; create investment capital, improve the competitiveness of Hai Phong seaport; training, developing human resources and developing modern marine science and technology.

The Hai Phong City People's Committee requires that the implementation work must be on schedule, suitable to the actual situation, feasible, of high quality and effective on the basis of maximizing resources. and stick to the development goals of the Resolution; defining and clearly assigning responsibilities of relevant agencies and units as a basis for inspection, supervision, urging and supplementing the implementation.

Resolution No. 02 dated August 2, 2021 of the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee also stated that Hai Phong must develop services for seaport operations and logistics services commensurate with its potential, advantages, and depth. to become an international transshipment hub and a modern logistics service center of Southeast Asia's stature; having breakthrough mechanisms and policies, an attractive business investment environment, effectively mobilizing and using investment resources at home and abroad.

Striving for the goal that by 2025, Hai Phong will become a key marine economy of the country, a national logistics service center with goods through the port estimated at 300 million tons, the average growth in the period of 2019-2025 is expected to reach 300 million tons. 15.1%/year.

By 2030, to become a modern international logistics service center by sea, air, highway, and high-speed rail. Cargo through the port is estimated at 600 million tons.

By 2045, continue to increase the contribution of seaport services and logistics services to the GRDP, contributing to making Hai Phong a city with a high level of development in the group of leading cities. Asia and the world.

According to Mr. Dao Trong Khoa, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Logistics Business Association (VLA), in order to attract investment and develop the logistics service industry, Hai Phong city needs to make recommendations to the Government to allow the mechanism to develop logistics services. flexibility in setting investment incentives, especially in infrastructure (land lease term, site clearance, taxes, preferential loans, Government guarantees...). At the same time, reforming administrative procedures, especially customs procedures, procedures for entering and leaving seaports of ships and goods...

Phi Hung ( Source : TTXVN/Vietnam+)