News & Event

The shipping industry will be more competitive in 2019

It is expected that in the coming time, with impacts from global and domestic trade developments, the volume of exchanged goods will continue to grow and bring some opportunities for Vietnamese shipping enterprises. That is the content of the seminar "Sea container shipping to 2025 and the impacts on Vietnam" that took place on the occasion of Lars Jensen - the world's leading expert on sea shipping in Vietnam.

By 2025, sea transport will change fundamentally compared to today

Speaker Vu Dang Duong - project leader translated the book Shipping Container Shipping by 2025 said: "The difficult situation of many large and small shipping lines has led to a wave of acquisition and merger very exciting. The consolidation of shipping lines by shipping lines is also a way for firms to cope with uncertainties in the near future. In the coming time, the M&A wave continues but it is in the final stage and there will not be many big deals happening. The alliance form will continue to be used by shipping lines. Shipping lines will increase the use of technology to reduce operating costs and reduce personnel, according to the general trend in recent times of cost cutting. ”

On the other hand, according to author Lars Jensen, by 2025 the shipping industry will fundamentally change compared to the way it is currently operating. Mr. Vu Dang Duong shared: “These changes will certainly affect the development of Vietnam's shipping and directly affect businesses that are exploiting container ports in key economic regions and more. 3,000 businesses operating in logistics.

In the same view, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Vinh, Managing Director of Vietnam Link Maritime Company said that in 2019 and the next years, sea container shipping will continue to develop and be very competitive among big shipping lines. on the world. Besides, shipping lines will have to build large ships to carry more goods, reduce costs, lower costs and compete with each other. In 2019, the US-China trade war will benefit exporters of goods from Vietnam to the United States, while investing in China will shift to Vietnam or neighboring countries. At that time, Vietnam needed to import materials to produce exported goods to other countries. Therefore, the potential of sea container transportation from Vietnam to the US and other countries as well as the opposite direction will be huge.

At the seminar, the speakers also showed the trend of developing the container shipping industry by 2025. In the future, shipping lines will coordinate to test solutions on the digital base, based on the demand and practical operation of the market, not based on feasible solutions on paper. At the same time, shipping lines will have a staff that focuses mainly on management, simply because many current positions in the office will be automated.

The weaknesses of Vietnamese shipping are still there

In addition to the new trend, experts at the seminar also shared concerns about outstanding issues in Vietnam's shipping industry. The lack of association between Vietnamese shipping lines has not been improved. Although recently recorded some cooperation between Hai An Group and Tan Cang Shipping, between Vinalines and East Sea but compared to very strong M&A activities between Chinese and Japanese shipping lines or the link between Korean shipping lines, the connection between Vietnamese firms is still quite loose.

According to Mr. Nguyen Xuan Vinh, Vietnamese shipping lines need to promote joint ventures with international maritime companies with the principle of mutual benefits to learn experiences and improve their qualifications. And this must be a coordinated relationship, not dependent. However, speaker Vu Dang Duong said that with the field of shipping with high expertise and strong foreign corporations, the cooperation with foreign countries to exploit domestic potential should be encouraged more. because of insisting on "less dependent" thinking. According to him, many lessons on the success of sea container shipping come from the cooperation between Vietnamese enterprises and foreign enterprises, typically the case of Tan Cang Cai Mep international port.

At the same time, to increase competitiveness, the most important thing is that Vietnamese shipping enterprises must build a good leadership team, because personnel is an extremely important factor in the situation of many changes. forthcoming. In addition, Vietnamese businesses also need to be more active in market access, often diversifying services such as extending routes by calling more ports, ready to access new markets and new ports to create. product breakthrough.