VICT Port increases customers‘ benefits

“As VICT is strategically located in Saigon River and being the closest international container terminals to and from the city, we do have the advantage of serving shippers and consignees located in our vicinity”, Mr Glenn Kong - General Director of VICT said to the reporter of VLR.

- Can you tell us that how important is VICT Port in HCMC in particular, and in the south area of Vietnam in general?

VICT is the first purposely built container port/terminal in Vietnam, having licensed in September 1994 and commenced operations in 1998, owned and operated by First Logistics Development (JV) Company (FLDC), comprises of shareholders NOL Ltd & Mitsui & Co; (MitOrient) and local Vietnamese partner, Southern Waterborne Transport Corporation (SOWATCO)

As VICT is strategically located in Saigon River and being the closest international container terminals to and from the city, we do have the advantage of serving shippers and consignees located in our vicinity such those located in Tan Thuan EPZ, Hiep Phuoc IZ and those located in the north-west in Binh Duong like Song Than IZ, VSIP IZ, enabling these exporters and importers to better manage their cost of inventory and cost of inland barging & trucking transportation since we are also working closely with haulers, barge-operators and ICD-operators to adding value to these customers. When more and more shippers and consignees embrace the port services of VICT, this in turn will attract more shipping lines to deploy their services and vessels calling at VICT.

Shipping lines, shippers, consignees, forwarders should pay port-operators compensatory for the services rendered especially when such services comes with value-add, so that the port-operators can continue to invest or plough back earnings into the business for growth, expansion, upgrading of equipment & facilities which in turn enabling the customers to receive better services and values – a continuous cycle of improvement for all stakeholders.

- At the moment, ports are starting to provide customers with package supply chains. What package services does VICT provide?

Today for example, VICT is offering non-containerized cargo storage at our yard though we may have to downsize this service offering when we get more saturated in our utilization as we need to allocate more assets and resources to cater to our core business of port, vessel and container handling. Our other value-add services include cargo stuffing at yard into containers that connect the vessels and vice versa and also transport service such as barging connection between our terminals and the ICDs, positioning ourselves closer to our customers’ (the shipping lines) customers (the shippers and consignees).

We are continuously working with potential clients, to determine how we can better integrate ourselves into the supply chain, such as providing on-dock cargo consolidation, on-dock cold-room, cargo-deconsolidation point, inbound logistics distribution hub services, using our assets & facilities, land, labor, other software & hardware to service the shipping lines and the 3PLs/4PLs where they can in turn markets their supply chain management expertise to the local and international sellers/buyers.

- VICT is said to be one of 203 enterprises - and the only container port in HCMC - that met the Public Order and Security Safety standard in 2013. What were the qualities that VICT had in order to win the title?

From the security aspect, VICT works closely the Police Authorities by improving cargo-release procedure to prevent smuggling & wrong release of consignment, protecting the interests of cargo-owners by calling for proof of identities & authorization. The employees of VICT understand the obligation and duties to protect the interests of the nation and its people by complying with regulations and cooperating with the various Governmental agencies and authorities.

Besides the aforesaid endeavor, VICT pays utmost attention to safety of workplace & employees and the protection of the environment. From safety aspect, we embrace recommendation from international bodies like IMO, WSC, ICS to resolve the problem of overweight container handling, way before measures like verification of container weights can eventually become regulatory. VICT continues to work in compliance with regulations imposed by Ministry of Environment and related authorities and agencies to keep green the environment, to prevent pollution to the rivers and other natural resources at large. All these efforts shall continue to be a part of our nature, be a part of VICT’s organization culture, commitment and contribution to the nation.

- What do you think about logistics in Vietnam in general and port exploration in particular?

As we know, Vietnam is opening its logistics market to the outside world this year and this is an exciting development that can help to promote efficient logistics enhancing Vietnam‘s competitiveness.

VICTPort is reviewing our business scope covered in our current investment license, to determine if there are areas where we can expand our services taking advantage of the opening up of the logistics market, to better serving our clients.

As reported by World Bank in their study “Efficient Logistics – A key to Vietnam’s Competitiveness”, it has already been mentioned that multimodal corridor approach need to be employed in transportation infrastructure planning and port planning to minimize risk of wasteful investment and fostering demand-supply equilibrium, which I am confident this will be the direction moving forward.

- Thank you, Mr Glenn Kong!