Trung Luong - My Thuan Expressway is one of the arterial roads, connecting the Southwest region with Ho Chi Minh City and the southern key economic region. Photo: ST

Hot issue in the Mekong Delta

If excluding Long An, the locality with the most industrial parks in the country with 42 industrial parks, most of the remaining provinces in the Mekong Delta are facing many difficulties in promoting development, especially commodity exports due to restrictions in logistics.

Pointing out that the logistics bottleneck is a huge obstacle for the whole region, experts said that if the road infrastructure is not improved, it is difficult to develop other services, including attracting foreign investment.

Although logistics in the Mekong Delta are being developed, compared to the potential and development needs of the whole region, this industry is still too small. Therefore, in the next 5-10 years, the logistics industry is a potential industry and is the most developed industry in the Mekong Delta, so it needs special policies for the development of the Mekong Delta, cooperation and linkage among enterprises.

Currently, major government projects are investing in the region, promising to bring great changes in infrastructure to the Mekong Delta.

With three major commodities, namely rice, seafood and fruit, contributing to the economic development and export of the Mekong Delta, currently, the Mekong Delta region has a limit ed cold storage system.

Currently, there are 10 large cold storage sites located mainly in the provinces of Long An, Hau Giang and Can Tho, which have not met the needs of seafood and fruit exporters.

Therefore, if there is a team of businesses to meet cold storage and refrigerated container needs and a professional transport team will help improve the capacity of export businesses.

Currently, the Mekong Delta has 1,461 logistics enterprises, accounting for 4.39% of the number of logistics enterprises in the country. Logistics businesses operating in the Mekong Delta only offer freight forwarding, leasing warehouses, customs clearance, domestic transportation, and retailing, but cannot yet integrate, organize and link operations in the logistics chain.

Therefore, the Mekong Delta Logistics Association should be established and developed to promote the strengths of businesses.

In order to develop logistics services as a regional connection center in Can Tho, Mr. Huynh Thanh Su, Deputy Director of the Department of Industry and Trade of Can Tho city, said that logistics infrastructure in Can Tho in particular and the Mekong Delta in general is still limit ed.

Therefore, the time to transport export goods accounts for a great deal, increasing costs and reducing the competitiveness of enterprises. Currently, Can Tho is implementing logistics centers, so it is very desirable that businesses invest in building logistics centers in Can Tho City to develop exploitation and serve export businesses, not only for Can Tho but also for other businesses in the whole region.

Over 120,000 seafood shipments are exported each year

According to the Ministry of Transport, up to 80% of goods in the Mekong Delta region are transported by road, mainly to ports in Ho Chi Minh City and Ba Ria - Vung Tau for export, causing high logistics costs.

In recent years, road infrastructure is considered a bottleneck restraining the development of the region and has received investment attention from state agencies. But most import and export goods have to be transshipped through ports in other regions, consuming time and costs, affecting the competitiveness of goods.

Mr. Truong Dinh Hoe, General Secretary of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers, said that more than 85% of the enterprises' export goods depend on the ports of Ho Chi Minh City and Vung Tau, the rest goes to the border gates in the North and Central regions.

According to calculations of seafood businesses, businesses make about 120,000 seafood export customs declarations a year.

With a large number of aquatic products for export in the Mekong Delta, besides logistics, the current difficulty businesses are most concerned about is the cost of transporting export goods. In addition to container costs, businesses want an effective solution to reduce the costs and time for transporting goods from the Mekong Delta provinces to export ports.

“Most aquatic products are frozen, the transportation must be fast, get the export bill quickly. If there is a good port system, receiving container ships will reduce costs for businesses," said Mr. Truong Dinh Hoe.

Regarding the cost of exporting goods of enterprises in the Mekong Delta, businesses said that there are businesses that export 40 containers of goods a day; if the cost is reduced per container, the value is great.

Along with that, it is necessary to have logistics services, such as Customs declaration services, C/O making, irradiation, specialized inspection, so that exporters do not have to bear the burden of these services, and specialize in the production and export of goods.

Regarding solutions to reduce costs and improve competitiveness for businesses, Mr. Nguyen Duy Minh, General Secretary of the Vietnam Logistics Business Association, said that the link between shippers and logistics enterprises is very important.

Currently, the biggest obstacle for exporters is renting empty containers. To solve this problem, according to Mr. Minh, shipping lines and large shippers need to discuss to plan and agree on the supply of empty containers by shipping lines to shippers.