At the webinar on increasing freight rates for import and export goods by sea and reviewing difficulties and obstacles in transporting import and export goods during the Covid-19 epidemic, organized by the Maritime Administration Vietnam (Department of Vietnam Airlines), Ministry of Transport, hosted the event on August 3, and a representative of the Vietnam Pepper Association reflected: The freight charge has recently increased bluffly, 500-1000 USD/time. adjusted, even 2,000-3,000 USD/time as a business (DN) could not keep up. More ominously, the shipping company is applying a very “weird” way of charging, not reporting freight rates first, but asking businesses to put the goods on the ship and then report. At that time, enterprises are forced to accept all prices offered by shipping lines without having the right to take the initiative. “In particular, there is a phenomenon that forwarders (transport agents) together offer extremely high prices to pressure businesses, the price offered by forwarders compared to the listed price of shipping lines is up to thousands of USD. /container.
The representative of an exporting enterprise is also quite angry when reflecting: Due to the unresponsiveness of the volume (weight of goods), the enterprise cannot contact and sign a contract directly with the shipping company, forced to sign a contract through forwarders with the shipping company. the fee is up to 15,000-18,000 USD/container shipped to the US. Even when accepting shipping at a high price, the company could not sign a contract.
| Sea freight rates skyrocketed, why? |
According to the representative of this enterprise, “the top is unjust, the bottom is chaotic” is a prominent problem of shipping lines today. There are many intermediary stages with many costs incurred for 1 container from the port to the enterprise to pack and then transport to the destination port. Enterprises themselves, before exporting 300 containers/month, now reduced to 100 containers/month because they could not get empty containers. “The problem is not that you can’t get empty containers, but you can still get them if businesses accept to pay high prices,” the business representative said.
The situation of having to pay an additional fee of 3-4 million VND/container to get an empty container is a pressing issue for businesses, especially small and medium enterprises. Not to mention, the rapid increase in freight rates makes it difficult for businesses to withstand. Representative of the Association of Logistics Enterprises, for example: Freight rates to the US west coast vary greatly, up to 6,000 USD/container. From the beginning of the year until now, shipping lines have introduced additional fees that have never existed in history. This cost must be borne by the exporter, for some industries, the freight is already higher than the value of the container.
Although businesses complain a lot about the shortage of empty containers and high freight charges, a series of shipping lines such as CMA-CGM, EVERGREEN, COSCO have affirmed that there is no shortage of empty containers. In addition to confirming that there is no shortage of empty containers, a representative of Yang Ming shipping company also said: The shipping rates are applied based on the agreement between the shippers and the carrier. Surcharges are publicly listed on the airline’s website. “Yang Ming does not increase the surcharge bluff,” Yang Ming’s representative confirmed. Regarding the difference in freight between the listed price and the actual price the enterprise has to pay, Yang Ming’s representative said that it is necessary to reconsider the negotiation between the shipper and the forwarder and Yang Minh has no opinion on this issue.
Regarding the fact that forwarders offer too large a price difference, a representative of CMA-CGM emphasized that the shipping company could not intervene because this object is also a customer of the company. The price policy is decided by the forwarder, not by the shipping line.
Before the above shortcomings, standing on the role of a state management agency, Mr. Tran Thanh Hai – Deputy Director of the Import-Export Department (Ministry of Industry and Trade) said that: The shipping lines that are exploiting the Vietnamese market are all airlines. For large ships, it is necessary to have a consistent policy and ensure credibility. The state of the freight rates is the responsibility of the airline, and the airline needs to have a policy to manage and control forwarders closely, there should be a commitment between the shipping line and the forwarder so as not to affect the market and businesses. “Forwarder has a very big role, especially with small and medium-sized export enterprises. The price going through the forwarders may increase but increase at a reasonable level, cannot slap water with the rain, creating more burden for businesses, “said Mr. Tran Thanh Hai.
Agreeing with the above point of view, Mr. Hoang Hong Giang – Deputy Director of the Vietnam Maritime Administration emphasized: The shipping company has a control policy with large forwarders, not allowing profiteering to happen. If the shipping line does not have a good policy, the management units of Vietnam will have sanctions to control these objects.
Leaders of the Vietnam Maritime Administration also suggested: From now until the end of the year, shipping lines should not adjust freight rates and surcharges incurred in Vietnam. In case it is necessary to adjust, discuss with the Vietnam Maritime Administration to remove and avoid adding burden to enterprises. In addition, shipping lines are transparent about freight rates. The Vietnam Maritime Administration will work with shipping lines to establish information channels for customers to refer to freight rates in the Vietnamese market as well as the surrounding market. Periodically coordinate with the Department to organize dialogues with customers.
According to Congthuong
