At the conference
On the afternoon of April 14, a conference ‘Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department and business community join hands for economic recovery’ and a seminar ‘Logistics of Ho Chi Minh City takes off’ were held by the municipal Customs Department and the city Logistics Association to help the logistic sector for the southern largest city’s economic recovery and development in particular and Vietnam in general.
According to statistics from the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, in 2021, although greatly affected by the pandemic, the city has seen a strong recovery in import and export activities. The total import and export turnover of goods as of December 31, 2021, undertaken by the Customs Department reached US$127.33 billion, up 9.5 percent over the same period in 2020 when it reached $116.28 billion.
Without the impact of the pandemic, it is expected that by 2025, the total import and export turnover of goods through the city will reach about $165 billion including $80 billion from exports and $85 billion from imports. The state budget revenue of the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department could reach VND130 trillion ($5.66 billion) in 2025 and VND147 trillion in 2030.
Mr. Dinh Ngoc Thang, Director of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, assessed that despite the above-mentioned development speed, the quality of the logistics infrastructure system in the city has not yet met the increase in goods production. Transport infrastructure has not met the Government's master plan, making logistics services unable to develop to their full potential.
With its position as the international trade gateway of the Southeast region, logistics plays an important role in the economic and social development of Ho Chi Minh City, and this also helps the customs sector to support importers and exporters to recover and develop the economy after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Therefore, to push up the city's logistics industry to develop into a billion-dollar industry, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department is committed to continuing to develop the accompanying partnership between the customs agency and business community.
On the side of industry and trade, Mr. Bui Ta Hoang Vu, Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade, pointed out that the weakness of the logistics industry today is over 90 percent of small and micro enterprises with weak financial potential and relatively low technology investments which mostly provide basic and single services.
