Throughout Ho Chi Minh and the surrounding areas in Vietnam, COVID-19 cases have now risen to thousands of cases per day. To combat the outbreak, the government has declared a “total lockdown.” New regulations allow factories to operate only if they can arrange their workers to stay inside their factories or dedicated quarantine place—with a company bus to send them to factory and back to a quarantine environment. COVID-19 tests are required every seven days. Many factories are struggling to implement these measures, causing further delays or temporary closures.

The below details outline the current freight-forwarding and logistics status:

Haiphong Port

  • All vessels and crews arriving to Haiphong Port, must go through quarantine protocols, the city has set up quarantine and fast test stations at the city’s border and gates.
  • All drivers must have a valid COVID-19 Fast Test Certificate to enter Haiphong.
  • All drivers and forwarding/logistics staff must have a temperature check and declare their health status when they check in terminals and warehouses in Haiphong.
  • Staff and workers at all terminals are working in shifts. Due to the vaccine shortage, the terminal’s staffs and workers are still waiting for their vaccines.
  • Haiphong has temporarily stopped receiving and operating all flights from/to Ho Chi Minh Airport.
  • Space remains extremely tight, and rates are rising on an almost daily basis.

 Air Freight

From SGN

  • Total volume is lowering due to lack of trucks and at last minute because of lack of factory workers for production.
  • Many bookings from large factories have been cancelled therefore, some flights are cancelled suddenly due to the drop-off of large bookings from these major exporters.   
  • Space from SGN is still ok but there is significant backlog from hubs. Almost all shipments have been delayed. Transit time is from five to 15 days for EU and U.S.
  • Due to a lack of manpower at TCS & SCSC (Airport Terminal Handlers), shippers will take a lot more time to deliver cargo.
  • Cut off time should be three to four hours earlier than usual.
  • Trucking will take one to three days with COVID-19 testing for drivers strictly implemented and other required tests from the local authorities will cause delays, as well.

From HAN

  • Hanoi has now entered a “lockdown,” as well due to rising cases.
  • Serious backlogs at origin and hubs are causing concerns
  • Drivers need to wait nearly one day to deliver cargo at the terminal.  

Imports

  • FCL containers from CAI MEP to CAT LAI now take 15 days, where normal transit was max seven days. Picking containers up from CAT LAI are impacted due to limited truck availability.
  • LCL shipments—to be un-loaded at warehouses—have slowed extensively, because warehouses face a significant lack of workers, due to their inability to get to work while adhering to the lockdown measures in place.

Customs and Trucking Situation HCMC Ports

  • Customs departments have only 30-50% of staff on duty and working on a shift basis.
  • The clearance process has been changed to limit the client or company who can directly contact to the Customs officer. That makes the clearance time longer by two to four days and more for imports sent for inspections.
  • The port labor is maintained at about 50% . It now may take about five to 7 days to handle cargo in an import container to a CFS warehouse.
  • CFS warehouse and port yard is overloaded and congested due to the above reasons. Customs is unloading cargo at port for 100% inspection, this is creating delays and higher costs.

If you have shipments moving through Vietnam and have questions, please reach out to your Mohawk Global representative.

Source: M & R Spedag

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