The Vietnam logistics transformation Forum, held by Business Forum Magazine in HCM city

Addressing the Vietnam logistics transformation Forum, held by Business Forum Magazine in HCM city, Mr. Chih Cheung – Founding Managing Partner, SLP Vietnam, said that SLP is the dedicated Vietnam platform for GLP. GLP is a global leader in modern logistics facilities and advanced technology solutions, and we currently manage about $120 billion of assets in real estate, renewable energy, data centers, and private equity across 17 countries and 97 offices. At the core, we are a provider of world-class logistics and industrial infrastructure solutions designed to support our customers. 

In Mr. Chih Cheung’s view, SLP’s aspiration is to do the same in Vietnam.  Vietnam is a better place to be than here given all the advantages: 1) a growing, young population of 100 million people; 2) stable and supportive government policies; 3) extensive trade agreements with other countries; and 4) favorable trends in manufacturing, exports, and domestic consumption – all driving the needs for logistics services.  At the same time, there are currently a lot of inefficiency in the logistics sector here.

“Logistics related costs represent about 20% of the GDP in Vietnam where in matured markets, it is closer to 7-9% of GDP. China was about 20% when GLP first started, and now it is about 14%.  As the largest investor by far in logistics real estate in China, we like to believe that we play a part in improving the efficiency there. We believe the same opportunity for improvement exist in this country”, said Mr. Chih Cheung.

Mr. Chih Cheung – Founding Managing Partner, SLP Vietnam

Over the last 20 years, GLP has transformed itself from being a warehouse landlord to a value creation ecosystem, including logistics technologies, robotics/ automation, equipment leasing, new energy and sustainability. This ecosystem enables SLP to provide comprehensive solutions to meet our customers’ logistics and operational needs. 

“Given our global reach – our asset portfolio covers 55% of global population and 77% of global GDP and supports a global network of over 2,300 customers, we believe we have global insights about past and current logistics and digital transformation trends.  We want to bring these insights – including innovative logistics technologies and solutions that we see around the world - to Vietnam and be a resource aggregator and information hub to help elevate and modernize the logistics sector in the country”, said Mr. Chih Cheung.

However, Mr. Chih Cheung recognizes SLP can’t transform the industry by itselves. “We are keen to partner with all you here and honored that we are working with VCCI, VLA, and Business Forum magazine to put together this forum to link our community and to exchange ideas and best practices about modern logistics and digital trends.  One of our core values is accountability and reliability.  We are still new to this country and very eager to learn. We will work hard to be the partner of choice to many of you to create value for our customers and pass the benefits to them and their end-users”, stressed Mr. Chih Cheung.

Mr. Chih Cheung said SLP hopes all the participants today will take away a few key themes from this forum: (1) this is the right place at the right time!; (2) together, we can partner to elevate the entire industry and (3) this forum is the just beginning – our commitment to this great country is just getting started.