Building specific mechanisms and policies to attract containers to Long An's ports

Attracting containers to ports in the province will create a breakthrough in attracting investment and developing the logistics service industry

Attracting containers to ports - lessons from many localities

In recent years, Long An has made remarkable progress in socio-economic development with a fairly high growth rate in the Southern Key Economic Zone. Along with industrial development, the province also aims to develop logistics services into an important economic sector, becoming a cargo transit center based on Long An International Port.

In reality, although the province has a diverse port system, a number of enterprises have invested in modern ports and warehouses, attracting large shipping lines to the port to load and unload import and export goods is still difficult due to the lack of an attraction mechanism.

According to Dr. Dinh Thi Thanh Binh - Head of the Department of Transport Planning and Management, University of Transport, currently, a number of other localities with ports similar to Long An have issued and effectively applied support policies. First, Thanh Hoa province, in 2019, had a policy to support 200 million VND/ship to Nghi Son Port with a minimum frequency of 2 trips/month.

In the period of 2019-2023, Thanh Hoa province supported 17.8 billion VND for 89/91 ships and brought 1,180 billion VND to the budget. In 2021, Ha Tinh province also had a policy to support 200 million VND/ship to Vung Ang Port with a minimum frequency of 2 trips/month.

In 2022, due to difficulties in attracting, Ha Tinh province increased support to 500 million VND/international trip and 300 million VND/domestic trip and from 1-2 million VND/container for businesses carrying goods passing through the port.

In 2022, Thua Thien-Hue province also has a pilot policy to support 210 million VND/ship with a minimum frequency of 2 trips/month through Chan May Port and 800,000-1.1 million VND/container for businesses carrying goods passing through the port, except for temporarily imported, re-exported and transit goods. “It can be seen that in Vietnam, while major seaports, although increasing fees, still do not affect the volume of container cargo and the frequency of ships entering and leaving the port, some localities with other seaports are trying to attract cargo flows and ship lines to increase the attractiveness of shipping services and competitiveness as well as market share from the "pie" of seaport services.

Obviously, Long An province can apply to the lessons learned from policies to attract cargo owners and ships to local seaports of these 3 central provinces.

Attracting container cargo to Long An International Port will not only bringing economic benefits but also develop the province's logistics industry and increase budget revenue from logistics activities in the area.

And especially, it ;also help reduce logistics costs for manufacturing and trading enterprises in the area thanks to shortening the distance of road transport in both directions of goods and empty containers, reducing the cost of ships entering and leaving the port thanks to the location near the port's shipping channel, thereby reducing sea transport costs, saving delivery time, increasing the efficiency of capital turnover of enterprises and neighboring areas" - Dr. Dinh Thi Thanh Binh affirmed.

Considering issuing specific policies by the end of 2024

According to Standing Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council - Mai Van Nhieu, in socio-economic development, the province's planning perspective is to maximize the different, outstanding potentials, geo-economic advantages to create breakthroughs, rapid and sustainable development. Therefore, Long An focuses on identifying and fully exploiting existing competitive advantages in many fields to create competitive advantages in attracting investment and developing socio-economic development. In particular, Long An International Port is an important highlight of the province in developing the logistics service industry.

However, in the early stages, the port system in the province still faced difficulties due to the lack of container sources in and out, so there were almost no ships entering the port, the high cost of ships entering the port made it difficult to attract shipping lines to choose ports in the province as a destination.

Mr. Mai Van Nhieu affirmed: “Initial support from the government through mechanisms and policies to encourage container transport through the port is very necessary, in line with the spirit of the government always accompanying investors for the common development of the province”. The issuance of specific mechanisms and policies is being actively deployed and implemented by the Provincial People's Council.

To successfully develop the policy, from an expert perspective, Dr. Dinh Thi Thanh Binh said that applying the lessons of the three central provinces is very necessary. However, when applying them to local practice, Long An should not follow a stereotype but needs to analyze local characteristics to come up with a policy to attract container goods that is specific to the province. “In particular, it is necessary to analyze the characteristics of cargo flows, evaluate the competitiveness of Long An International Port compared to neighboring ports in terms of port location strengths, traffic connections, infrastructure capacity and equipment, service quality and total service costs for domestic cargo owners and international import and export goods through the port.

In particular, it is necessary to clarify the costs in terms of money and time loss for cargo owners and shipping lines when there are goods and ships arriving at Long An port compared to neighboring ports. From there, we can identify the main solutions to attract container cargo flows; at the same time, we can also identify the direct and indirect subjects of the policy.

Who to support, how much support, how to support and for how long as well as forecasting the effectiveness of the policy must be proactively studied before implementing the policy" - Dr. Dinh Thi Thanh Binh said.

According to the Provincial People's Council, from consulting experts on policies to attract containers to ports in the province, the Provincial People's Council continues to study legal regulations as well as local practices to consider issuing a Resolution of the Provincial People's Council on a specific mechanism to attract containers to ports in the province by the end of 2024.

In particular, the goal of the Resolution will focus on solutions to reduce port service costs according to regulations; encouraging cargo owners, domestic transport business owners, ship owners to the port by offsetting the increased costs, promoting logistics development, forming a chain linking the supply of production materials, stable consumption of goods and attracting investment in the province.

The promulgated policy will directly contribute to increasing the province's state budget revenue from export and import taxes, value added tax, indirectly impact the formation of container shipping routes and generate revenues from service enterprises at ports, domestic transport and logistics units.

At the same time, when the policy is promulgated, it will also promote indirect effects, having important strategic significance in improving the readiness and quality of service for industrial and service development, increasing the attractiveness of investment destinations, creating strong competitive advantages to attract many large investors to explore investment cooperation opportunities. This also demonstrates the dynamism and supportive role of the government for businesses./.

By Nhat Minh - Translated by Q. Thien

Source: https://baolongan.vn/xay-dung-co-che-chinh-sach-dac-thu-thu-hut-container-vao-cang-a179829.html