Logistics services in the Mekong Delta are in need of major improvements to help address the obstacles facing the transportation of goods, particularly agricultural products, the 2023 Vietnam Logistics Forum (VLF) heard.

The forum, which opened in the Delta’s Can Tho city recently, was aimed at promoting links and facilitating dialogue between State management agencies, localities, associations, and businesses in the field of logistics, to boost the sector’s development in the region.

The Mekong Delta has a dense river network with a total length of over 28,000 km, but only 10 per cent of products are transported by waterway.

Analysts believe the greatest obstacle to the Mekong Delta’s economic development is the limited logistics network connecting production and consumption. Logistics costs, meanwhile, account for up to 30 per cent of product cost.

Logistics infrastructure has failed to meet actual demand, according to Forum participants. There remains too few seaports, especially deep-water seaports capable of berthing container vessels, and there is a general lack of key logistics centers and warehousing.

Figures from the Vietnam Logistics Association show there were 1,461 logistics enterprises in the Mekong Delta in 2022, or 4.39 per cent of Vietnam’s total. However, the number of professional logistics providers is limited. Only three out of 13 localities in the Mekong Delta have commercial cold storage services for the transportation of agricultural products.

In order to boost logistics development in the region, the government has issued a number of decisions to develop road and waterway networks.

Under Decision No. 1454/QD-TTg from the Prime Minister, issued on September 1, 2021, the Mekong Delta is to have six new expressways with a total length of 1,166 km by 2030.

Under the inland waterway planning approved by the Prime Minister in October 2021, five inland waterways and one coastal transport route will be developed in the Delta.