For each container of woodwork shipped from the Cat Lai port in HCMC, Vietnam to the United States, exporters have to pay up to US$25,000.

Sea freight rates continue to escalate as they track petroleum prices, pushing up export costs and thus reducing the competitiveness of Vietnamese goods, according to businesses.

According to Vietnamese businesses, the Covid-19 epidemic has made it difficult for them to maintain production and ensure on-time delivery. The higher transportation cost is "another hit".

With unreceived containers piling up and hampering the work of much-reduced personnel, Cat Lai Port in Ho Chi Minh City has thrown in the towel and requested that importers readjust the shipping routes to alternative destinations.

Container shipping costs in Viet Nam have increased fourfold, even eightfold on certain high-demand routes compared to pre-pandemic levels, the latest logistics report by SSI Research has said.

Earlier this month Idemitsu Q8 Petroleum LLC opened its first retail outlet in Ha Noi’s Thang Long Industrial Park, marking the first time a wholly foreign-owned company has entered the fuel retail sector.

 VietNamNet Bridge – The Vietnam Shipping Lines Corporation (Vinalines) has completed the process of value assessment to that it can carry out privatization in the first quarter of next year.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Domestic logistics firms have got ready to compete with foreign service providers in Vietnam, the market which has been fully opened since January 11, 2014.

 VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Transport has proposed to apply a series of measures to help shipping firms ease their difficulties and regain the maritime transport market from foreign agents.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Foreign investors have geared up to prepare for the Vietnamese logistics market opening in 2014.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Selling ships is a solution that helps shipping firms survive the current difficulties, but it is not the way they can follow to earn their living.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Only 18 per cent of Viet Nam's listed companies reported first-half losses, but some of these ran into hundreds of billions of dong with maritime transport and mining businesses the hardest hit.