Report on the socio-economic situation in the first quarter of 2024, impacts on the Logistics industry.

Report on the socio-economic situation in the first quarter of 2024, impacts on the Logistics industry.

Based on the socio-economic report for the first quarter of 2024 by the General Statistics Office, the impacts of the Vietnamese economy on the logistics industry in general and international transportation in particular can be observed as follows:

1. Opportunities:

- Total import and export turnover increased sharply by 15.5% compared to the same period last year, with exports increasing by 17% and imports by 13.9%. This indicates a rising demand for transporting import and export goods, creating growth opportunities for the logistics and international transportation industry.

- Industrial production activities recovered well with an increase of 6.18%. The manufacturing and processing industries, as well as electricity production and distribution, experienced considerable growth. The development of industrial production leads to an increased demand for transporting input materials and output goods.

- Revenue from warehousing and transportation services in the first quarter increased by 10.58% compared to the same period, reflecting the growth of the logistics industry.

- The number of newly established and resumed businesses increased by 5.1%, creating a foundation for increased logistics and transportation demand.

2. Challenges:

- The Covid-19 pandemic has not completely ended, and the risk of resurgence and new variants may negatively impact production, trade, and international transportation activities.

- High fuel prices due to fluctuations in global oil prices will increase operating costs for the transportation industry.

- Intense competition among domestic and foreign logistics companies to gain market share in transportation and warehousing.

- The number of enterprises forced to withdraw from the market increased by 22.8%, indicating the difficulties of the economy still weighing heavily on many businesses, affecting the volume of goods needing transportation.

- The trend of supply chain shifts away from China may lead to reduced production in Vietnam and a decrease in import and export volumes through Vietnam.

Thus, the recovering economy creates many opportunities for the development of the logistics and international transportation industry. However, businesses also face numerous challenges. Proactively seizing opportunities, flexibly adapting, and finding solutions to overcome challenges will help logistics and international transportation businesses stay strong and grow in the context of an economy with many fluctuations.

To take advantage of the opportunities from the economic recovery to develop the international transportation industry, businesses need to:

1. Expand fleet size and improve service quality:
- Total import and export turnover in Q1/2024 reached 178.04 billion USD, a strong increase of 15.5%, with exports increasing by 17% to 93.06 billion USD and imports increasing by 13.9% to 84.98 billion USD.
→ Businesses need to expand the scale of container fleets, bulk cargo, and specialized vessels to meet the increasing transportation demand. Invest in upgrading seaports, yards, warehouses, and loading and unloading equipment to improve the capacity to handle import and export goods.

2. Strengthen logistics for maritime transport:
- Revenue from warehousing and transportation services in Q1 increased by 10.58% compared to the same period.
→ Maritime transport enterprises need to closely cooperate with logistics companies to provide comprehensive services from transportation, warehousing, customs procedures, delivery to customers, increasing value and competitiveness.

3. Develop multimodal transportation:
- Added value of the manufacturing and processing industry increased by 6.98%, contributing 1.73 percentage points to the overall growth rate.
→ Strong development of the industrial sector will boost the demand for container shipping by sea and domestic transportation by road and rail. Businesses need to leverage the advantages of each mode and promote multimodal transportation to optimize transportation efficiency.

4. Apply information technology and digital transformation:
- Revenue from telecommunications services in Q1 increased by 3.4% compared to the same period.
→ The development of telecommunications infrastructure enables transportation businesses to strongly apply information technology such as transportation management systems (TMS), warehouse management systems (WMS), and logistics digitalization platforms to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs.

5. Exploit key import and export markets:
- The United States is the largest export market with a turnover of 26.2 billion USD. China is the largest import market with a turnover of 29.4 billion USD.
→ Businesses need to focus on exploiting the transportation of goods on the Vietnam - United States and China routes and vice versa, building a network of agents, cooperating with large shipping lines to transport import and export goods between these markets.

6. Train and develop high-quality human resources:
- The percentage of trained workers with degrees and certificates reached 27.8%, an increase of 1.4 percentage points compared to the same period.
→ The transportation industry needs to focus on training human resources to equip the workforce with knowledge and skills in logistics management, foreign languages, information technology to meet the requirements of rapid development and deep international integration of the maritime transport industry.

Thus, by effectively exploiting the opportunities from the growth momentum of the economy, combined with synchronized and appropriate solutions as mentioned above, the international transportation industry in general and the maritime transport industry in particular of Vietnam will be able to develop strongly, enhancing its position and competitiveness in the coming time.