Businesses in logistics and agricultural processing are embracing ambitious expansion plans to effectively cash in on opportunities from the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

Businesses hope to boost export value by virtue of the EVFTA 

Tan Cang Waterway Transport JSC (a subsidiary of Saigon Newport Corporation) has just pressed into use the Hoang Anh-Lokaport inland clearance depot of over 6.8 hectares in total space in the northern province of Hai Duong.

The new port has a designed capacity of 20,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) containers and one million tonnes of cargo in the first phase.

Lokaport is the new destination on the north-south container route of Tan Cang Waterway Transport JSC.

In the first phase, Tan Cang Waterway Transport will co-operate with Lokaport in investing and operating vehicles, including five barges from 74 to 96 TEUs with eight voyages per week to transport containers and two barges (1,200 tonnes) to transport steel, equipment, paper, animal feed, and raw materials for factories in Bac Ninh and Bac Giang provinces.

The service also covers transporting domestic and import-export cargo from northern key economic areas such as Bac Ninh, Hanoi, Hai Duong, and Hung Yen to ports in Haiphong and vice versa.

In the case of Long An international seaport, according to chairwoman Pham Thi Bich Hue of Long An International Port Operation and Management JSC, the company expects posting breakthroughs in development this year.

Along with this, right in the first days of 2020, the company hailed a super-long, heavy-lift vessel reaching 35,000DWT in gross tonnage.

Simultaneously, the company has realised diverse ambitious investment plans.

Along with this, Wharf No.3 has 90 per cent finished construction work and is slated to start operation early in the second quarter of this year.

In the upcoming time, the company envisages kicking-off the construction of wharf No.7 having the capacity to receive ships of up to 70,000DWT and commence operation in the first quarter of 2021.

Last year, Long An international port welcomed nearly 1,000 domestic and international ships and reached approximately one million tonnes of cargo, three times the number of ships called on the wharves and representing a 160 per cent jump in cargo volume compared to the year before.

Meanwhile, G.C Food JSC based in the southern province of Dong Nai has recently brought its aloe processing plant in Ninh Thuan province into production.

With a daily processing capacity reaching 200 tonnes of material, this is one of the largest aloe processing plants in Vietnam. The company has also been investing in a fruit tree farm of more than 43ha land in Ninh Thuan province to supply input materials for food and agricultural product processing plants.

According to company director Nguyen Van Thu, G.C Food mainly engages in processing items from fresh agricultural materials such as aloe, pineapple, and coffee. As many of their customers come from Europe, he hopes the EVFTA would help boost the company’s export value to this market and scale up production.

The European Parliament on February 12 ratified the EVFTA and the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement. The next step before the agreements can come into force is the ratification of the agreement by the National Assembly of Vietnam slated in May 2020.

The EVFTA is an ambitious pact eliminating almost 99 per cent of customs duties between the EU and Vietnam.

As per the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the deal is expected to help increase Vietnam’s GDP by 4.6 per cent and its exports to the EU by 42.7 per cent by 2025. Meanwhile, the European Commission has forecast to increase the EU’s GDP by $29.5 billion by 2035.