Shipping Notes for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Vietnam is becoming an increasing popular alternative to China and and more buyers are integrating Vietnam manufacturers into their company’s supply chains. Vietnam has three industrial regions northern, central and southern. The northern region which includes the border with China has the North Key Economic Zone this is made up of several cities including Hanoi. This region is particularly attractive to companies who would like to move some of their manufacturing into Vietnam and keep limited manufacturing operations in China.

The Central Key Economic Zone is made up of five provinces in this region with the majority of industry being concentrated in the Da Nang area.  This area is currently not as economically developed as the north or south regions, but is continuing to attracted inward invest and is steadily growing its occupancy.

The Southern Key Economic Zone is made up of several southern provinces which included eight cities. The biggest of these is Ho Chi Ming City and the region around this has created the biggest economic investment zone across the country, with the highest occupancy rate. Industrial sectors include:

• Equipment/Machinery
• Food Processing
• Textiles
• Chemical Product Manufacturing
• Metal and Plastics Manufacturing

Logistics within Vietnam are now well developed around the main ports, with significant investments in the port facilities and surrounding infrastructure. Most of the world’s main shipping lines have at least one service every week calling at Hau Phong, Dan Nag and Ho Chi Minh allowing a whole range of European destinations to be served.

From Ho Chi Minh City all common equipment is available including 20ft and 40ft High Cube size containers for standard shipments. Flat racks and open-top containers are available for out of gauge shipments.  and LCL services for loose and palletised cargoes. AJF can give rates for shipments to buyer’s purchasing under incoterms such  FCA, Ex-works and FOB incoterms for importers and DAT/DDP for exporters from Ho Chi Minh.

If you are a UK exporter and are an existing exporter or looking to export for the first time, especially with BREXIT happening in the UK. AJF handles export shipments from the UK to the Ho Chi Minh region we can offer assistance on which incoterms to use, best way of shipping including packaging of goods and if using an LCL or full container service.

For buyers who are shipping from various factories in the Ho Chi Minh region, our buyers consolidation service exists to collect the goods, store them in a warehouse and when there is sufficient for a full container load, stuff the container and arrange the export  clearance. The service gives the  benefit of saving on freight charges and having the security of only your goods in the container. If you are currently shipping LCL and are interested in this option then contact us to see if it would beneficial for you. The service is suitable for buyers who ship full containers from several different factories but want to ship more frequently. The buyers consolidation service means trucks can regularly call at the manufactures and pick up any goods ready and bring them to a central warehouse. Once there is sufficient for a container then it is loaded and shipped. This service can be beneficial for a buyer’s supply chain operations. If you need quality inspections to be made of the goods then we can arrange for them to be inspected once the have arrived at the storage warehouse. Quality inspections can be done to a buyer’s specification with photographs, written reports and where required even live video chat, allowing any potential production  issues to be dealt with immediately.

For very specialised cargoes including ones which require  geared vessels we can arrange both part and full ship charters, we have extensive contacts in the ship broking world and can usual find a vessel for any project cargo and port. Our consulting services are available to help clients plan how they are going to move the cargo, this includes covering the type of cranes required, trucks and site access. AJF has consulted on project shipments across the world and resolved many issues our clients have faced successfully.