Shipping move part of voyage to WTO

Danish firm Maersk A/S last week received a licence to provide sea freight and logistics, which will include delivery, warehousing and agent services, in Ho Chi Minh City.
The company’s total registered capital in Vietnam is $1 million and it is allowed to operate for 20 years.
“We are happy to be the first foreign investor allowed to set up as a wholly-foreign owned shipping agent in Vietnam,” said Maersk A/S acting general director Jesper Schou.
“The opening of Vietnam’s shipping logistics sector, with more foreign investors coming in, will create healthy competition to help satisfy customers in and out the country.”
In Vietnam’s transport sector, foreign firms have thus far been allowed only limited participation in the logistics chain. Under government decree 10/2001/ND-CP outlining investment in shipping services, a foreign party could not hold more than 49 per cent of total investment capital in a foreign-invested firm.
“Vietnam’s investment climate has improved and this is attractive for foreign investors,” Schou said.
Maersk A/S applied to the Ministry of Planning and Investment in November last year, receiving the investment licence five months later.
Schou told Vietnam Investment Review that Maersk A/S also intended to eventually set up an office in Hanoi. The Ministry of Planning and Investment said the approved Maersk A/S project is in line with the Vietnam-European Union agreement on the EU’s recognition of Vietnam’s entry into the World Trade Organisation, signed last October. Under the agreement, Vietnam made some market opening commitments in transportation, financial, postal, construction, distribution, environmental, tourism and trade services.
Vietnam will also apply an average 16 per cent import tariff on industrial goods, 22 per cent on fishery products and 24 per cent on agricultural goods.