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Logistics Vietnam looks back to step forward

Vietnam logistics industry is formed on the basis of many fields. If calculated from the establishment of Vietnam Logistics Association (VLA), Vietnam logistics industry has been in Vietnam for 25 years. Despite the remarkable results, the logistics industry still faces many difficulties and challenges that need to be addressed in the future in the context of global integration.

Many puzzle pieces

First of all, it must be affirmed that logistics is an important service economy systematically related to many different industries and economic fields. Although it is relatively developed but still new in Vietnam, even the concept has many different ways of calling / understanding. For these reasons, until now, there has not been a sufficiently detailed study of Vietnam logistics industry (except for a few studies for training) and the numbers are only estimates.

The term Logistics is officially mentioned in Article 233 of Vietnam Commercial Law in 2005, which states: "Logistics services are commercial activities whereby traders organize one or more stages including receipt. goods, transport, storage, storage, customs clearance, other paperwork, customer advice, packaging, code signing, delivery or other related services goods under agreement with customers for remuneration ”.

From an academic point of view, researchers have come up with different but common understandings, logistics is operating in a series of services from pre-production stage to goods to the end consumers. It is directly related to transportation, forwarding, warehousing, administrative and consultancy services (customs, tax, insurance, etc.), import and export - trade, distribution channels, and sales. odd ... In the field of state management, logistics involves many ministries such as Industry and Trade, Transport, Finance, Justice, Information Technology, Labor ...

In legal terms, until now, the regulations on logistics services business only have Decree No. 163/2017 / ND-CP issued by the Government on December 30, 2017 (effective from 20.2. 2018), replacing Decree No. 140/2007 / ND-CP dated September 5, 2007 detailing the Commercial Law on conditions for logistics service business and limited liability for traders providing logistics services. Besides, the rest is scattered in other Law documents such as: Civil Code, Law: business, investment, competition, customs, road, railway, inland waterway traffic, Civil aviation, maritime, insurance and regulations, guidelines for implementation.

About specialized associations related to logistics services is also quite a lot, there is no consistency or close linkage leading to operational efficiency sometimes limited.

The achievements

On the basis of research and understanding of writers, in terms of economy, logistics services with the meaning of "logistics" and "freight forwarding" in Vietnam have formed for a long time and made important contributions to the background. economy. Along with the process of opening from 1994 to the present, especially after Vietnam joined WTO in 2007, the growth rate of the logistics industry in general has remained high with 2 numbers.

The system of road transport infrastructure, airports, seaports, warehouses, commercial infrastructure, logistics centers has been continuously expanded with large and wide scale. Along with that, the accompanying services have been timely meeting the very diverse requirements of the market. Reforms in administrative procedures and business conditions in all fields have been promoted; favorable business investment environment; the results from international economic cooperation ... have created conditions for businesses to develop, reduce costs, improve competitiveness and promote exports; forming comprehensive, diverse and increasingly specialized logistics supply chains, contributing significantly to the structure of the economy.

Specifically, according to the logistics industry report of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, by the end of 2017, the country had 13 highways, 146 major national roads with a total length of 23,816km; 3,161km of railways; 44 seaports; 42 routes of public navigable channels into the national port with a total length of 935.9km and 10 channels of specialized ports capable of receiving ships of up to 200,000 DWT; 45 national inland waterways with a total length of about 7,075km; 21 airports are currently operating. The amount of circulating goods is increasing.

According to Vietnam Logistics Business Association (VLA), the development speed of the logistics industry in Vietnam in recent years has reached about 14% - 16%, with a scale of about 40-42 billion USD / year. Participating in the logistics market is about 3,000 domestic businesses and about 25 leading logistics companies in the world in various forms.

Customs clearance and procedures for exports have also improved significantly. In 2017 the export clearance time is 105 hours, imports are 132 hours. Vietnam is also ranked 39 out of 160 countries in logistics performance index and ranked 3rd in ASEAN after Singapore and Thailand.

Prospects and orientations

Although important results have been achieved, but until now the competitiveness of Vietnam's logistics industry is still limited by both hardware and software infrastructure as well as management technology and policy environment. scale and capacity of enterprises, human resources ... still need to be further promoted to catch up with the development level of partner countries and competitors in the region.

It is forecasted that the global logistics market will grow at an average rate of 6.54% per year in the period of 2017-2020, and reach USD 15.5 trillion in 2024, nearly double the level of 8 , $ 2 trillion in 2016. In particular, with the strong development of the 4.0 revolution, new trends and technologies for e-commerce and development are and will be the main driving factors. the development of global logistics in the near future with high growth rates, especially in Asian countries.

The good news for Vietnam logistics is that the Government, ministries and localities are interested, the communication work continues to be promoted. So far, the legal framework and policies related to logistics are gradually improving. We have also planned and developed an action plan in Decision No. 200 / QD-TTg with 60 tasks of 6 groups, including: Perfecting policies and laws on logistics services; Complete logistics infrastructure; Improve enterprise capacity and service quality; Developing logistics service market; Training, raising awareness and quality of human resources; and other tasks. In particular, Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Transport, VLA Association are assigned units to assume the most tasks.

The goal of the plan is that by 2025, the proportion of logistics services in GDP will reach 8% - 10%, the service growth rate will reach 15% - 20%, the rate of outsourcing logistics services will reach 50% - 60%, logistics costs fell to 16% - 20% of GDP, ranked according to the national logistics index (LPI) in the world reaching 50 or more.

Experts believe that in order to achieve the proposed plan, state management agencies, associations, enterprises and localities should focus on synchronous and drastic implementation of the tasks mentioned in Decision No. 200 / QD -TTg on February 14, 2017 by the Prime Minister: Promote administrative reform, cut or simplify logistics-related administrative procedures, especially specialized inspection procedures; Speeding up the progress of key logistics infrastructure projects; Integrating regional integration and cooperation activities with market opening, access to supplies from neighboring countries, and improving quality and standardizing logistics services; Expanding logistics training network, promoting logistics for all levels, sectors and production and business enterprises; Continue to improve the institutional framework and state management apparatus for development of logistics; Diversify capital sources for logistics infrastructure development in different forms; Strengthen links to jointly develop and build Vietnam logistics brands.

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