Vietnam has made strong strides in production and export, but the logistics system still has many long-term shortcomings, pushing up costs and reducing advantages... This was frankly pointed out by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at the Vietnam Logistics Forum 2025 recently held in Da Nang. These bottlenecks are both technical and reflect structural limitations and development thinking, requiring strong participation of both the State and the private sector.
Six major bottlenecks of Vietnam's logistics
At the Forum, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized: Logistics is an industry that plays a vital role in the circulation of goods, and is one of the pillars to promote national competitiveness. In recent times, the Party and the State have paid great attention and have had many important policies and guidelines to develop the logistics industry.
However, the Prime Minister also stated: The Vietnamese logistics industry still has shortcomings and limitations, notably 6 main bottlenecks, including:
Firstly, Vietnam's logistics costs are still among the highest in the region, accounting for a large proportion of product costs. Currently, the transportation system still depends heavily on roads, which are easily congested and have high costs, while railway and waterway infrastructure are not developed commensurately.
Second, regional linkages and infrastructure connections are not synchronous, limited, and are vulnerable to natural disasters. According to experts, many localities today, despite having large production capacity, still depend on a few single-traffic routes, making the supply chain susceptible to disruption when incidents occur.
The third is the segmentation of the market. The Prime Minister pointed out: Small-scale logistics enterprises still account for the majority, weak competitiveness, and a lack of large enterprises. This leads to a shortage of units in the market capable of leading and creating common standards; indirectly causing costs to increase with each stage, making it difficult for businesses to optimize the supply chain.
In addition, in Vietnam, there has not yet been a national logistics center for international goods transit. The industry also lacks high-quality, well-trained, professional human resources, suitable for the international working environment.
The fifth bottleneck is that the logistics institution has not yet specifically regulated new types of logistics services for e-commerce, green logistics, and special goods logistics.
The final bottleneck is related to digital transformation and green transformation. Experts say this is an inevitable trend in the global logistics industry, but the majority of Vietnamese enterprises, especially small enterprises, do not have enough resources to implement.
The Prime Minister stated that the above limitations require innovation in development thinking, strongly transforming from the state of "small logistics support" to "developing modern and smart logistics"; promoting regional, regional and international linkages; considering logistics as a driving force for socio-economic development...
How private enterprises solve the problem of bottlenecks
From the above 6 bottlenecks, it can be seen that Vietnam's logistics problem does not lie in one link, but belongs to the structure of the entire system. In that context, the strong participation of the private sector, especially corporations with financial capacity and development experience, is creating positive changes. T&T Group is a typical example.
Entering the logistics playground not too early, T&T Group quickly affirmed its position with a different strategy. Instead of investing in small pieces, Bau Hien Group aims to create a complete ecosystem, with a long-term vision.
The first step was taken in 2015, when T&T became a strategic shareholder of Quang Ninh Port - a national deep-water port, an important focal point on the key economic corridor of Quang Ninh - Hai Phong - Hanoi. At this time, most of the goods from the North are concentrated in Hai Phong, causing great pressure on the seaport system.
The participation of T&T Group has created a "then" change: After only 1 year, the output of goods through Quang Ninh Port has increased by 30%; the output of goods unloaded has increased by 33%. Revenue indicators increased by 31%. In particular, profits increased by 280%. The figures not only show financial efficiency, but are also a sign that Quang Ninh Port has truly become a "second door", sharing the pressure with the Hai Phong port system that is approaching the load-bearing threshold.
For T&T, this is the first foundation to prepare for a longer-term strategy in the next decade, when strategic investors participate more deeply in the big playground, playing a leading role, shaping a national-level chain of connections.
3 years later, T&T Group continued to surprise all observers when it joined hands with logistics giant YCH (Singapore) with a strategic memorandum of understanding at the end of 2018. At this time, YCH proposed the idea of forming a smart logistics connection chain at the regional scale - an idea that coincides with the vision that T&T Group is pursuing.
The result of this cooperation is the birth of Vietnam Super PortTM - the largest multi-modal logistics center in Vietnam, the first component of the ASEAN Smart Logistics Network. ICD super port in Phu Tho has directly resolved 2 major bottlenecks: large logistics costs and lack of national logistics centers.
Classification robot system, Optimized operation AI, AGV autonomous vehicles, extended aviation warehouses... not only help increase productivity, reduce errors but also standardize the entire chain according to international standards. More importantly, the connection of Super port to the railway - road - seaport - air force creates a rare multi-modal connection platform, a component that Vietnam has lacked for many years.
In the long term, the super port aims to contribute to reducing domestic logistics costs from 21% to 14% of total domestic product by 2025 and by 2035, approximately 8-10% of Singapore.
Below the sunken iceberg
However, Vietnam Super PortTM is just a noticeable part of the iceberg. At the deeper level, logistics is not just about warehouses for goods and cargo vehicles. Realizing this, T&T Group has continuously expanded its investment in transport infrastructure. This is also a way for T&T to contribute to solving the bottleneck in connectivity raised by the Prime Minister.
In the North, Quang Ninh Port, Nam Phuc Tho Industrial Park (Hanoi) combined to help the goods flow be more appropriately distributed, instead of concentrating on a single area. In the Central Highlands, the Bao Loc - Lien Khuong T&T Group expressway participating in the investment is a route of special significance.
This is the largest agricultural export raw material area in the country, but the current transportation cost is still high. When completed, the journey connecting to the southern logistics centers will be significantly shortened, reducing delivery time, thereby increasing competitiveness for agricultural products - the group of goods that are having to bear the highest logistics costs in the value chain.
In the Central region, Quang Tri Airport is entering the final stage to be ready to be put into operation in the middle of next year. Not only "opening the sky" for the North Central region, the Port is also a multi-modal transportation hub, connecting aviation - road - rail and seaports through the East-West economic corridor axis.
Notably, from the thinking of developing individual transport infrastructure projects, T&T Group's vision has been elevated to a thinking of creating new development space. There, the airport is an inseparable part of the large-scale aviation, logistics, service, commercial and urban airport complex. With this approach, Quang Tri airport is expected by experts to become the largest "hub logistics" in the region.
Steadfastly on the ground, Bau Hien's logistics picture continues to be perfected with a major aviation strategy. After the airport groundbreaking ceremony not long after, T&T Group became a strategic shareholder of Vietravel Airlines, bringing the young airline into a new stage of development. T&T also did not hide its intention to participate more deeply in the air cargo segment (Air Cargo) as soon as possible.
This is even more meaningful as Air Cargo is becoming an increasingly important piece for export-oriented countries. Will the capacity to transport goods by road not be the key for Vietnam to improve logistics standards, reduce dependence and be more proactive in the international supply chain?
For the group of bottlenecks in technology and human resources in logistics, T&T Group has also quietly found a way to solve them with systematic and specific plans.
Regarding digital transformation and green transformation, Vietnam Super Port Port PortTM is a pioneer in applying robotics systems and customs clearance solutions to apply artificial intelligence in operations; at the same time, creating a Logistics Connection platform for domestic small and medium-sized enterprises.
Regarding training high-quality human resources, T&T Group also joins hands with large partners, typically YCH, to train young Vietnamese experts, aiming to manage advanced supply chains that apply high technology.
Founder and Executive Chairman of T&T Group Do Quang Hien once commented: "Logistics is the blood vessel of the economy, and Vietnam to make a breakthrough must become a distribution center of the region". And the ecosystem that the Group is creating shows that a private enterprise model can contribute to solving the key bottlenecks that the Government has pointed out in this particular field.
