Logistics sector sees positive shift

Vietnam's logistics infrastructure posted positive changes throughout 2019 while several major road and railway upgrade projects were put into service.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Khanh cited the data released by the Ministry of Transport as saying that in the first nine months of 2019, six major transport projects were completed and put into use.

Notably, the nearly 60km Ha Long-Van Don expressway section connected with the Haiphong - Hanoi expressway was officially inaugurated and put into service in February 2019, shortening the travel time from Hanoi to Van Don island district, Quang Ninh province to 2.5 hours from 4 hours.

Many other major transport projects were put into operation last year while the rural transport system was upgraded considerably. This bolstered more effective connections between these transport items and logistics services, hence leading to major changes of the logistics industry and its quality services.

As noted, rail transport also made great improvements as a string of railway upgrade projects and freshly-invested ones were completed during the year, eventually increasing the quality of railway infrastructure as well as rail safety.

A high-speed container train route was put into use in 2019, which connects Yen Vien station (Hanoi) to Song Than station (southern Binh Duong province) with 50 train trips per week and the travel time of 40 hours. This train route helped to better meet cargo transport needs.

Deputy Minister Tran Quoc Khanh quoted statistics of the Vietnam Logistics Business Association as saying that the logistics industry has reached annual growth of 14-16% in the past few years with its annual revenues reaching from US$40-42 billion. In 2019, the transport services, warehousing, forwarding and other related services all experienced positive growth.

However, he noted the logistics industry has yet to fully exploit logistics-related potential of localities while logistics firms were encouraged to tap into localities’ transport infrastructure to create favorable connections for their services.

VOV