Vietnam SuperPort to enhance railway development and transport to China

Yap Kwong Weng, CEO of Vietnam SuperPort

After signing an MoU with Transport Development and Strategy Institute and China Railway 16^th Bureau Group Vietnam Co., Ltd. last week, what are your expectations about future cooperation?

The MoU signing is the start of many great things. Plans will change, but one thing for sure is that we intend to cooperate with each other and as the plans firm up, especially the master plan from 2025, we will be ready to work together immediately. We will be able to structure new strategies ahead that are aligned with the National Development Strategy.

We will also be able to develop new systems that can add value for the project and the surrounding people around it. For Vietnam SuperPort, business is not just about making profits, business is also about serving the communities, but about empowering the new systems and bringing in talent technology and development. This is ingrained in the business of how the SuperPort and also how our joint venture works, like partnering local communities with local businesses. For example, we have just partnered with Vietnam Post.

We are also partnering with other technology companies, some global types of companies and bringing in some of the best talent that we have around the world. This will help our company and Vietnam as a whole as they grow in a very dynamic world ahead.

When is the construction of the cargo terminal and railway line at Vietnam SuperPort expected to begin and be completed?

All of these take some time for the master plan to be implementable. There’s already a plan for 2020 and from 2025 to 2030. We hope to embark on it as soon as possible. We already have land in Vinh Phuc province that enables us to run a railway system. Furthermore, we hope to connect that railway system to the main railway system which will be the new network. And within it, we will find ways to be able to enhance it even better.

Vietnam SuperPort is finding the most efficient routes that can lead to both north and south of Vietnam, particularly to Kunming in China through the Lao Cai border. That is where the centre of gravity will be, especially because it is a traditional trade route from China to Vietnam, and also looking at the south and how we can connect to the rest of the networks.

Vietnam SuperPort shaking hands with China Railway 16th Bureau Group Vietnam Co., Ltd.

How has Vietnam SuperPort planned and prepared resources to complete the railway logistics infrastructure?

Our group’s capabilities go in many different areas from transportation to storage to distribution to cold chains, and high-value technology within warehouses, both normal warehouses and bonded warehouses and taking the technologies from our Supply Chain City in Singapore. Incidentally, this year will be our 70th anniversary back in Singapore for YCH Group.

The idea and philosophy of growing without growing pains is critical because we don’t want companies in Vietnam to reinvent the wheel. We want to come in and support them with the knowledge and experience that we already have across Asia-Pacific, more than 16 countries in operations and bring that expertise quickly into Vietnam, allowing Vietnam to spear ahead of the entire logistics connectivity front within ASEAN.

And this is fully possible, we are very excited about it, and we think that this is the best time to do it. As global dynamics change, sometimes crises can be an opportunity. In this case, building a rail infrastructure is definitely an opportunity, and it will give us many boosts within the connectivity space, especially in the railway infrastructure space.

How will the cargo railway terminal at Vietnam SuperPort be built to meet the increasing demand for cargo transportation while ensuring green logistics and sustainable development?

Firstly, we adopt a multimodal approach which means rail, road, also linking to the airports. And rail is definitely one area that we have defined ourselves to be special, not just because we have a rail station, but because we operate as a distribution centre and transition hub. Vietnam SuperPort also has a bonded warehouse and also a cargo terminal. We are pledged towards net zero by 2040.

If adding all of these things together, Vietnam SuperPort is creating a value creation that enables a much more competitive advantage. Especially when goods want to come, for example from China, if they come in a single programme, we will be able to tell them how to transport their goods and services into ASEAN. So, they use not just our warehouses, they can also go straight to the airport terminal running through Vietnam SuperPort's bonded warehouse and cargo terminal. And if they need to store, there are containers at our inland container depots.

And in the case of rail, if the company decides to transport their services to the South of Vietnam, they will be able to do. So SuperPort provides competition to companies.

We take very seriously how we create our competitive advantage, and we also use a lot of expertise back from Singapore, transferring technology and ensuring sustainability and human resource development. This is the right time because Vietnam is expanding, and we take a very strategic perspective from that, it is also based on the asset right strategy that we have created this to build connectivity in ASEAN.

Vietnam SuperPort and the Transport Development and Strategy Institute

What positive impact can the initiative bring to Vietnam's economy?

These infrastructure projects take time, but at the same time, there are many things that can be done concurrently. For example, building talent will take time to train, and it will take time for manufacturing services to be formed, for partnerships to be created, for cargo terminals to have high-value customers both from the US and China and for the largest companies to come and enter the country and set up their businesses here.

The important thing is how fast we can build our centres of excellence. The faster we can build them, the better it is. With the Transport Development and Strategy Institute that Vietnam SuperPort has just partnered with, we can create a policy hub that forms centres of excellence to provide us with an advantage.

We intend to run the SuperPort not just based on centres of excellence, but on the foundation and expertise that we already have. So, we have planned to bring robotics from Singapore to our warehouses.

The SuperPort also has a sustainable plan to achieve net zero by building a “park within a park” spanning 5 ha, filled with clean energy. We intend to have 30MW of solar and clean energy within Vietnam SuperPort. Out of which, 6MW will be on other forms of clean energy such as batteries and so on.

Together, we will find a new system and experiment with that, not just with an EV fleet but with new sustainable solutions that will rapidly lower carbon emissions.

Vietnam SuperPort partners Vietnam Post in digital logistics to accelerate SME growth Vietnam SuperPort™ and Vietnam Post Corporation signed an MoU on December 17 to create customised platforms that help small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) export goods to Asia.

Vietnam’s first logistics laboratory established In an effort to strengthen Vietnam's position as a key logistics hub in Southeast Asia, Vietnam SuperPort and the University of Transport Technology (UTT) have cooperated to establish Vietnam's first logistics laboratory.

Vietnam SuperPort and strategic partners develop rail logistics Vietnam SuperPort™ has signed a deal with the Ministry of Transport of Vietnam, China Railway, and 16th Bureau Group Vietnam Co., Ltd., part of China Railway Construction Corporation, to develop rail logistics infrastructure.