Vietnam has advantages in terms of coastline, seaport system, and inland waterways, but has not yet exploited them effectively.
In the coming time, the proportion of maritime and inland waterway transport must be increased to at least 50% to exploit the strengths of waterways and reduce pressure on roads. This content was raised by Minister of Transport Nguyen Van Thang at the Dialogue Conference of maritime and inland waterway enterprises held on the afternoon of March 22, in Ho Chi Minh City.
According to Minister Nguyen Van Thang, the Ministry of Transport organized this conference for ministries, sectors and localities to study and find practical solutions to take advantage of strengths such as a long coastline, a diverse port system, and rich inland waterways in all three regions of the North, Central and South. Currently, the road market share accounts for 80% of goods and nearly 100% of passengers. Despite efforts to invest, the road infrastructure still has many shortcomings. Meanwhile, the waterway and maritime systems are very good in all three regions but have not been exploited effectively.
Therefore, Minister of Transport Nguyen Van Thang raised the issue that in the coming time, the proportion of maritime and inland waterway transport must be increased to at least 50%. If this can be done, it will help reduce logistics costs, maintenance costs, and reduce traffic accidents on roads. The Ministry of Transport hopes to receive more comments on issues of maritime transport development, thereby proposing policies to encourage businesses to invest and develop.
Vietnam has the advantage of a long coastline, close to international shipping routes, a dense river system, the maritime and inland waterway industry plays an important role in the transport sector in particular and the Vietnamese economy in general. This is a low-cost mode of transport, capable of transporting large volumes of goods, oversized and overweight, over long distances.
In fact, most of Vietnam's import and export goods are transported by sea. Vietnam's seaport system has received the world's largest tonnage ships, attracting 40 major shipping lines in the world to operate. Vietnam currently has 3 ports in the list of 50 container ports with the largest throughput in the world.
Mr. Tran Bao Ngoc, Director of the Department of Transport (Ministry of Transport) said that Vietnam's shipping fleet has developed rapidly in recent times, with a total tonnage increase of 42% over the past 6 years (from 7.58 million DWT to 10.7 million DWT). Vietnam's shipping fleet handles 100% of domestic output and 6-8% of the market share of import-export cargo transportation. However, the structure is still unreasonable, with a high proportion of general cargo ships and small tonnage, while the world trend is increasingly using large tonnage ships and containerization.
Sharing about container transport activities, Mr. Vu Thanh Hai, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hai An Transport and Stevedoring Joint Stock Company, shared that the sad reality is that Vietnam has 1,015 water transport ships but very few container ships. To maintain the development of Vietnam's fleet, units need to have more new fleets suitable for practical needs; in which, priority should be given to developing ships with a capacity of 1,700 TEU.
However, the current difficulty in developing the fleet of enterprises is that the cost of investing in ships is too high, especially container ships; the interest rate of loans at banks is relatively high and the cost of value added tax (VAT) for importing ships is 10%. Mr. Vu Thanh Hai proposed that there should be good policies on loan interest for enterprises investing in developing container fleets. Exempt or reduce VAT on importing container ships and exempt contractor tax for enterprises when renting or leasing containers.
Meanwhile, according to Mr. Tran Do Liem, Chairman of the Vietnam Inland Waterway Transport Association, the proportion of professional water transport vehicles is not high and business is irregular. Currently, most private companies only have 2-3 barges, fragmented, numerous but not strong, not competitive enough. Therefore, it is necessary to supplement the list of vehicles and the State prioritizes preferential credit for enterprises investing in ships.
At the conference, many delegates said that the unpredictable developments in conflicts and weather in the world today have led to difficulties and challenges for the transportation industry, affecting the operations of enterprises producing and distributing goods. Therefore, updating and supplementing new mechanisms and policies in the maritime and inland waterway sectors to better support maritime and inland waterway enterprises is very necessary.
The Ministry of Transport said it will direct its affiliated units to carry out a number of tasks to facilitate business operations. This is aimed at effectively exploiting inland waterway transport to help reduce the load on roads, contributing to reducing transportation costs and reasonably regulating the market share structure of transport types; at the same time, maximizing the location advantages of seaports, especially international gateway ports, to attract large tonnage ships to transport import and export goods on long-distance sea routes.
According to VNA
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