Hanoi (VNA) - The maritimetransport sector achieved positive growth last year, but the internationallogistics industry faced many challenges, according to the Vietnam MaritimeAdministration (Vinamarine).

At a recent conference about the maritimetransport sector, Vinamarine said the shipping volume of Vietnamese vesselslast year totalled 130.9 million tonnes of cargo, up 6 percent from 2016.

Domestic ships are now undertaking nearly100 percent of domestic sea shipping, except for shipping of LPG and bulkcement.

Since 2014 to the end of 2017, river-seacompatible ships transported 36.2 million tonnes of cargo.

Last year, they completed 22,000 shipments,an increase of 67 percent year-on-year. Shipping volume was 18.5 tonnes ofcargo, up 56 percent from 2016.

Bui Thien Thu, deputy head of Vinamarine,said the country as of December last year had a total of 1,594 marine transportvessels.

Of these, there were only 40 containerships, accounting for 5 percent of total capacity.

“This is the reason why our marine vesselsrun mainly on short-distance routes like Southeast and Northeast Asia and holdonly 10 percent of Vietnamese export-import shipping by sea,” he said.

He said Vietnamese seaports achieved highgrowth last year with shipping volume via all seaports totalling 536.4 milliontonnes of cargo, up 17 percent year-on-year.

The number could have been higher but therewas a shortage of “a logistics value chain”, he added.

At a recent seminar on Vietnamese logisticsorganised by Thoi bao Kinh te Vietnam (Vietnam Economic Times), Thu saidVietnamese inland ports, or Inland Container Depots (ICD), are logisticscentres but do not link with railways, domestic waterways and airways, whichincreases costs.

Logistics firms are facing difficultiessuch as low quality seaports, low rate of seaport and loading and unloadingcharges, and lengthy administrative procedures.

Thu said though the country has 1,300logistics and maritime services companies, most of them partner with or providelogistics services for another firm.

Foreign logistics companies are still themain players in the field, he added.

Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen VanCong said the Cai Mep - Thi Vai seaport received for the first time vesselsweighing 200,000 tonnes in 2017, a significant event as the route is nowconsidered an important international seaport.

But he emphasised the importance ofdeveloping the route into a logistics hub.

“At the moment, HCM City has six ICDs, BinhDuong has two and Dong Nai has three,” he said. “Their locations are convenientfor supporting transport of export-import goods from seaports. This is veryimportant for the development of nearby seaports in the region. But it’snecessary to strengthen connections with other means of transport to facilitatethe shipping of goods from one warehouse to another.”

He praised the national one-door customspolicy, which was launched at nine seaports. Together with online customsclearance services, it has helped save time and money for firms.

He also said more meetings and seminarsshould be held with logistics firms and associations with the aim of workingtoward increasing seaport services charges to help firms earn more money sothey can adopt new technology and restructure their businesses.

More measures are also needed to preventlogistics firms from unfair price competition. - VNA