According to the Da Nang Department of Transportation, there are currently a total of 761 freight and warehousing companies in the city.

Cargo being unloaded at the Da Nang Port

In particular, the Da Nang Port is able to receive up to 45,000 DWT ships, container ships with capacity of 2,000 TEUs, and over 75,000 GRT cruise ships.

By the end of this year, the total volume of cargo transported through the Port is likely to have reached an estimate of 8,600 million tons, and to have welcomed 365,000 container ships, plus 100 cruise ship arrivals carrying a total of 160,000 passengers and crew members.

In the near future, the Da Nang International Airport will be upgraded into a dedicated terminal offering air freight services. By 2020, the airport is expected to handle between 23,000 and 30,000 tons of cargo annually.

As for road freight services, the Da Nang-Quang Ngai and Da Nang-Hue expressways, along with the East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC) route, have facilitated the transportation of cargo to destinations in the central region and highlands, as well as to foreign countries along EWEC such as Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.

Therefore, Da Nang boasts huge potential for logistics industry, and it can cover a wider range of logistics services, including monitoring shipments, and handling process for Export / Import /Transit shipments throughout Central Viet Nam.

Mr Mai Van Quang, Chairman of the central regional branch of the Viet Nam Logistics Businesses’ Association, remarked that Da Nang is blessed with a favourable geographical position and modern infrastructure, including the soon-to-be-built Line Chieu Port. To realise its sustainable development goals, the city has restructured towards a service-based economy, and exerted every effort to attract even more domestic and foreign investment into various aspects, especially logistics sector. This has laid the critical foundation for developing Da Nang into a major logistics hub in the country.

However, Mr Quang also pointed out several shortcomings in the performance of the logistics sector in the city.

In particular, there is a lack of synchronous connections between seaports, roads, railways, and airways. This causes longer transport time which results in an increase in transportation costs and the ineffective preservation of goods.

In addition, the 3PL service (short for third-party logistics), which is simply the use of an outside company to perform all or part of the firm’s materials management and product distribution function, has yet to be developed in the city.

Currently, many businesses are seizing the big opportunities of logistics industry to invest in developing their infrastructure, and purchasing modern equipment to offer this service.

For example, in 2015, the Ho Chi Minh-based Transimex Joint Stock Company opened its logistics centre in the Hoa Cam Industrial Park in Da Nang.

Covering an area of 16,200m², the Da Nang Transimex Logistics Centre includes a 7,600m² general warehouse with the storage capacity of 10,640m³ of goods, and a 1,600m² freezing and refrigeration area. In addition, it features an automatic cargo forklift and loading system, and an international-standard and professional warehouse management software.

In addition to buying 3 reach stacker cranes at a cost of over 30 billion VND, the Da Nang Logistics Company (Danalog) built a Container Freight Station (CFS) bonded warehouse in 2017, which is the first of its kind in the central region.

Danalog is the first company in the city to join forces with the Da Nang Customs Department to deploy the Viet Nam Automated System for Seaport Customs Management (VASSCM).

The implementation of this new management system allows customs declarants not to show related paper documents when delivering goods through the customs supervision area as before. This helps them save between 1 and 2 hours for delivering each batch of goods, and an average of 0.5 and 1 hour for unloading each container, as well as reduce time and costs taken for handling import and export procedures.

Mr Tran Phuoc Hong, General Director of the Danalog, remarked in the years ahead years the focus would be on improving the quality of their training programmes to their staff, as well as modernising loading and unloading technologies and goods management system, in a bid to become a leading 2PL provider in the city.

Under a master plan for the development of the city’s logistics industry by 2030 with a vision towards 2045, a regional-level and 4 provincial-level logistics centres will be built in the city.

In detail, the soon-to-be-developed Lien Chieu Port will serve as a regional-level logistics centre. Meanwhile, the 4 provincial-level logistics centres will be constructed in Hoa Vang District’s Hoa Nhon Commune, at the Kim Lien cargo railway station, at Da Nang International Airport and in the city’s Hi-tech Park.