Logistics Forum with Europe - Americas 2023: Improving competitiveness for businesses

Logistics faces new challenges

Speaking at the forum, Mr. Ta Hoang Linh - Director of the European - American Market Department, Ministry of Industry and Trade said that logistics has always been one of the areas receiving the top attention of the Vietnamese Government. The Government has identified logistics as an important service sector in the overall structure of the national economy, playing a role in supporting, connecting and promoting the socio-economic development of the whole country as well as each locality, contributing to improving the competitiveness of the economy.

"With its special geographical location, located in a dynamically developing region of the world, where global goods flows are concentrated, Vietnam has many advantages in promoting production, export, and developing logistics services," Mr. Ta Hoang Linh informed.

According to Mr. Ta Hoang Linh, with the attention of the Government and the efforts of the business community, the Vietnamese logistics industry has made significant progress. To date, the country has about 35,000 enterprises operating in the logistics sector, with more than 5,000 professional enterprises.

Mr. Ta Hoang Linh - Director of the European - American Market Department spoke at the forum.

Logistics is also one of the fastest and most stable growing industries with an average growth rate of 14-16% per year, contributing 4 to 5% to GDP.

Regarding the Europe-America region, Mr. Ta Hoang Linh said that for many years, this region has been known as an important market, home to Vietnam's leading trade partners such as the United States (largest), the European Union (third largest) and many other important and potential partners. Statistics show that in 2023, the trade surplus between Vietnam and this region will reach 125 billion USD. Of which, the surplus with the US market will reach 92 billion USD and the European region will be 33 billion USD.

However, in the context of a volatile world market, a difficult world economy, and declining global demand, the pressure on the logistics industry to optimize to compete and win orders is becoming more intense. In addition to the pressure of competition in services, new international environmental standards also put logistics service enterprises in front of the need for innovation, requiring logistics enterprises to proactively invest and transform their production and business models towards "greening", improving competitiveness and ensuring sustainable development.

“In that context, to be able to grasp the above opportunities, logistics solutions play a very important role in maintaining sustainability, enhancing the resilience of the supply chain, as well as enhancing the competitiveness of businesses, opening the door for many export industries of Vietnam” , Mr. Ta Hoang Linh emphasized.

Investment, infrastructure modernization

According to Mr. Joel Perler - Director of Economic Development, Business Development Department, Long Beach Port, infrastructure modernization and logistics optimization are among the important requirements to improve logistics efficiency. Typically, at Long Beach Port, in the past 10 years, the port has invested 1.6 million USD in the seaport infrastructure system including the internal port system and surrounding infrastructure connections. Currently, the port has connected to 260 seaports in states across the US with a transport volume of up to 10,000 vehicles per day. Currently, the wharf system at Longbeach can accommodate ships of 16,000 TEU. This helps this seaport become the number one export seaport in the US and the 21st busiest container shipping port in the world.

Delegates discuss solutions to improve competitiveness for the logistics industry.

Along with infrastructure investment, Vietnam's logistics industry needs to take advantage of multimodal transport to effectively save time, costs and promote the export of goods.

According to Mr. Nguyen Xuan Hung - General Director of Ratraco Railway Transport and Trading Joint Stock Company, using the Asia - Europe international railway transport route connecting Vietnam - China - Central Asian countries - Russian Federation - EU is one of the solutions to optimize logistics costs as well as ensure the safety and quality of goods. However, Vietnam currently has only over 3,000km of railway. Of which, only 15% of the railway system ensures high-speed transport standards. This causes the transport time to be extended, especially for businesses in the Southern region.

Along with that, the capacity of exploiting this mode of transport is still low. Typically, on the Vietnam - Russian Federation route, the current volume of container transport by rail is still low, averaging about 30 - 40 containers/month each way. Low transport output is mainly due to limitations in container shells, scattered demand, and not enough quantity to run specialized container trains. Therefore, to improve this problem, Mr. Hung said that in the coming time, the unit will organize specialized container trains between Vietnam (Yen Vien station) and the Russian Federation (Vorsino - Moscow station).

In addition to the railway transport route, Ratraco is working with partners to build and operate a multimodal transport route (railway combined with seaway between Vietnam and the Russian Federation. With this solution, from Moscow it is possible to connect by rail to Vladivostock and then go by sea to seaports in Vietnam and vice versa.

Regarding improving logistics performance, Professor Daniel Wong, Portland State University, USA, said that businesses need to diversify risk management models. The most important of which is ensuring network security. Accordingly, businesses must innovate global connection technology while maintaining information security, not falling behind and being eliminated.

In addition, it is necessary to ensure the human resource factor. Human resources are not only technical, software, and information personnel, but also content personnel, solving business problems with technology.

In addition, businesses need to choose the right technology solutions in the context of constantly changing technology. "If about 3 years ago, we talked a lot about Blockchain technology, now it is AI technology, GPT chat, and tomorrow it will most likely be newer technologies," Professor Daniel Wong emphasized.

Source link: https://congthuong.vn/dien-dan-logistics-voi-khu-vuc-chau-au-chau-my-2023-nang-cao-nang-luc-canh-tranh-cho-doanh-nghiep-293316.html