As Ho Chi Minh City and 18 southern provinces and cities have extended the implementation of social distancing under Directive 16 of the Prime Minister, all areas of social life, production and export activities have been affected. Many temporary solutions have been issued to remove difficulties and support production and export activities of enterprises.

The difficulties in circulation of imported goods at Cat Lai port
are being urgently removed. Photo: VNA

Maintain operation in difficult times

In the days of social distancing, to maintain production activities, enterprises must meet the requirements of "3 in one spot" or "1 route 2 locations". Although businesses all agree to implement the models, in the process of implementation, many difficulties have arisen.

As reflected by enterprises, the factory is just a place of production, so the "3 in one spot" production model is expensive and difficult to operate. Businesses must periodically test for Covid-19 for workers, arrange meals and rest for workers, resulting in significant costs. However, the biggest difficulty of enterprises is retaining workers and raw materials for production and business. There are businesses that can arrange the "3 in one spot" model but many workers are skeptical, worry about their children and families, do not want to focus on work, so they can only attract 30-40% of staff. Some enterprise can do the "3 in one spot" model, but faces difficulties in sourcing production materials.

Due to the travel restrictions, or the different regulations on the "passport" of each locality, affecting the transportation of goods, there were times when the source of raw materials was blocked. There are cases where efforts have been made to keep workers and take the initiative in the source of raw materials, but due to the pandemic, the locality requested to suspend production.

According to Ms. Ta Ha, a market expert of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), while in the West, shrimp raw materials are in season, businesses can't buy them, so businesses in coastal provinces such as Binh Dinh, Kien Giang and Ba Ria - Vung Tau have reduced their capacity by 20-70% due to a lack of raw materials. The reason is that localities are all distanced to apply strict management measures or some fishing ports are blocked due to Covid-19 cases.

Mr. Pham Hoang Viet, General Director of Sao Ta Food Joint Stock Company (FMC), said that Soc Trang and some western provinces are at the peak of raw shrimp harvesting. However, some farming areas in pandemic-affected areas could not carry out the harvest, and enterprises could not purchase raw materials for production, leading to a situation where some localities are redundant, while the others face a shortage. This situation not only affects production enterprises, but also greatly affects aquaculture farmers and other chains.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Quang, Head of Import-Export Department of Hansoll Vina Co., Ltd (Song Than 1 Industrial Park, Di An, Binh Duong), said that the company has more than 4,000 employees but currently only 100 employees can be arranged according to the "3 in one spot" model.

Accordingly, in order to maintain production, the company currently only executes existing orders and exports finished products to partners rather than importing materials for new orders. Although orders for imported materials have already arrived at the port, they must be stored because there are no production staff.

The company has renegotiated with the partner to extend the delivery time. However, if the pandemic lasts for a long time and production is interrupted, the risk of losing market share is great.

In addition, the current "3 in one spot" regulation also causes many factories to reduce their capacity because they can't meet the requirements. If enterprises can't meet the requirements, the lack of workers also creates a problem in production.

Moreover, due to the implementation of pandemic prevention requirements, many packaging, service and auxiliary materials factories for the seafood industry were closed. Seafood enterprises have to continue looking for alternative suppliers, but most of them have to negotiate to extend the delivery time due to the delay in some production stages.

In such a difficult situation, many businesses decided to overcome challenges to maintain production, because if the factory closes, the production and supply chain will be broken, workers will lose their jobs and have no income. Enterprises believe that maintaining production in the current conditions is not for the profit of enterprises, because the cost is greatly increased, but still choose this option to retain workers, and at the same time maintain the production supply chain to complete export goods supply contracts and limit fines. The desire of businesses at this time is not growth but a focus on fighting the pandemic and desire to get vaccinated soon to keep the health of workers.

Do not let production chains break

Facing problems arising from enterprises, especially problems in the circulation and transportation of goods, ministries and branches issued documents and instructions to remove obstacles.

Recently, on July 29, the Government Office issued an express dispatch requesting not to check at the pandemic control points for vehicles with an identification certificate with a valid QR Code issued by the Transport sector for the transportation of goods in service of construction, production, business, import, export and consumption (except for goods banned from production and trading) on all highways, provincial roads, inter-district roads and urban roads nationwide.

The checking of means of transporting goods when leaving and entering the places of gathering, transshipment and delivery of goods (ports, wharves, railway stations, warehouses, yards, industrial parks, production facilities, etc.) ensures fully complying with pandemic prevention and control requirements, without causing traffic congestion.

Not only removing obstacles in traffic, many problems for import and export goods at the port are also removed by management agencies. According to the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, currently, many enterprises have suspended production activities due to blocks or because the conditions "3 in one spot ", "1 route 2 locations" are not guaranteed according to the regulations of the People's Committees of some southern provinces and cities, leading to an increase in backlogs at some seaports with large traffic such as Cat Lai port.

In order to remove difficulties for Cat Lai port, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has sent a written report to the General Department of Customs to to propose the competent authority allow Saigon Newport Corporation to transport backlogged goods from Cat Lai port to Hiep Phuoc Tan Cang port for storage and procedures to reduce the load on Cat Lai port.

At the same time, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department also proposed to allow Saigon Newport Corporation to temporarily store imported goods at Cai Mep port to wait for independent transportation procedures to the destination without administrative penalties beyond the time limit for customs clearance when the enterprise registers the declaration. This also allows Saigon Newport Corporation to lease ports in the area of Ho Chi Minh City to store goods to reduce the load on Cat Lai port during the Covid-19 pandemic in the southern region.

Understanding enterprises' problems about the quarantine of imported materials, Mr. Bach Duc Luu, Director of Regional VI Sub-Department of Veterinary Medicine, said that on July 27, the Department of Animal Health - Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, had a Document 1259/TY-KD on the application of a temporary plan on import quarantine due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Accordingly, the Department of Animal Health requested the Animal Health Sub-Department of Region VI to apply a temporary plan on the quarantine of imported animal products during the implementation of social distancing in accordance with Directive 16.

In which, the import quarantine of terrestrial animal products, for the group of high-risk animal products, every five batches of random sampling of one batch to inspect, test and issue the Certificate of Quarantine; for the group of low-risk animal products, no inspection samples are taken, only records are checked; for consignments that do not have to be sampled, only records shall be checked; for quarantine aquatic animal products for processing and export processing, only records are checked, not the actual status of shipments.

The efforts of enterprises to overcome difficulties, along with the support of the management agencies to remove obstacles, have one only goal, which is to soon overcome the Covid-19 pandemic and return to the "new normal" state.

The groups of solutions to rescue backlogged goods at Cat Lai port

Facing the backlog at the port due to the pandemic, on July 31, leaders of Saigon Newport Corporation announced that they would temporarily stop receiving imported goods from businesses and customers who are stopping production.

Encourage ships entering the port to only receive export goods. Temporarily suspend receiving cold goods transshipped into containers until the end of August 16, 2021. At the same time, Cat Lai port temporarily suspends receiving goods that occupy large yards, such as: super-long, super-heavy cargo, project cargo, oversized, overloaded cargo, etc. from August 5, 2021 until further notice.

On August 2, 2021, at a meeting with relevant agencies and units on the handling of backlogged goods at Cat Lai port, on the basis of opinions exchanged on solutions to difficulties and problems. At Cat Lai port, the Vietnam Maritime Administration and the participating units agreed to implement three main groups of solutions as follows:

Firstly, the group of solutions to increase the capacity to release goods from the port, assigned the Vietnam Maritime Administration in Ho Chi Minh City to coordinate with the Saigon Newport Corporation to review and work specifically with each shipper whose goods are at the port to agree with the goods owner to remove difficulties and obstacles to soon receive goods.

Secondly, the group of solutions to increase the exploitation capacity of the port yard, assigned the Saigon Newport Corporation to actively adjust the container loading between the import container yards, export containers and empty containers accordingly to increase the receiving capacity for imported containers; maximize the capacity of loading and unloading containers on the yard; move empty containers out of the port; adjust the time to receive the export container.

Thirdly, the group of solutions to reduce the amount of goods imported to the port, requesting to temporarily stop transferring imported containers from Cai Mep area ports, Tan Cang Hiep Phuoc port to Tan Cang Cat Lai port (goods owners receive directly in Cai Mep or Tan Cang Hiep Phuoc port, ICDs, ports in the Mekong Delta near their factories and enterprises), except for special cases, based on the receiving capacity of Tan Cang Cat port assigned to Saigon Newport Corporation to actively handle; working with shippers and shipping lines to limit the number of ships or delay the import of imported containers to the port for imported goods from businesses and factories that are reducing production scale and output.

On the basis of surveying the receiving capacity of neighboring ports in the region, the Vietnam Maritime Administration has assigned the Port Authority of Ho Chi Minh City to develop a plan to regulate the route of ships arriving at Cat Lai port to the above-mentioned neighboring ports in case Cat Lai port has to temporarily stop receiving ships.