Hanoi (VNA) - The Ministry ofTransport (MoT) has rejected a proposal of cutting container loading andunloading service fees at seaports by 30 percent, chief of the ministry’soffice Nguyen Tri Duc has said.

The ministry said that the current containerloading and unloading service fees of Vietnam were much lower than othercountries in Southeast Asia.

Thus, a 30 percent reduction would negativelyaffect Vietnam’s seaport enterprises. Meanwhile, the reduction would bringbenefits to foreign shipping lines because they still collect relatively highfees on Vietnam’s import and export companies.

A representative from Cai Mep InternationalTerminal said that the volume of goods transported through seaports sawsignificant declines and was forecast to drop by 60 percent in the secondquarter of this year, which would significantly erode seaport revenues.

Further cuts in container landing andunloading service fees would be unreasonable in the context that seaportcompanies were already facing difficulties.

The Ministry also urged the Vietnam MaritimeAdministration to propose amendments to the Circular 54/2018/TT-BGTVT aboutseaport service fees for approval in September to ensure harmonisation ofbenefits.

Previously, the associations of logistics andimport-export companies proposed container loading and unloading service feesto be cut by 30 percent so logistics costs could be reduced as imports andexports collapsed globally due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In another move, several towage serviceproviders recently announced cuts on towage service fees by 10 percent for Vietnam’sships operating domestically to the lowest level regulated in the Circular 54to support firms to overcome the difficult time.

The reduction would be applied for threemonths, starting from May 1.

The Vietnam Maritime Administration hasrecently urged cuts on towage and pilot service fees for Vietnam’s shipsoperating domestically by 10 percent.

The volume of goods via seaports started toslow down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the reduction was notsignificant, Trinh The Cuong from the Vietnam Maritime Administration said. Headded that seaport and marine transport companies must support each other toovercome difficulties.

Statistics showed that nearly 161.5 milliontonnes goods were shipped through seaports in January-March, up by 8 percent.

However, the volume of goods shipped throughseaports in April saw a drop of 7 percent to 53.8 million tonnes./.