HANOI – Hoa Phat Group is recruiting employees for two of its large projects to manufacture shipping containers to help address the severe shortage of containers and increase the consumption of its hot-rolled coil (HRC) steel.
The two projects will be executed in the northern city of Haiphong and the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau. With Hoa Phat’s steel manufacturing capacity, the two projects are expected to help consume one million, or 20% of HRC steel produced by the group.
If the projects are put into operation late next year, domestic exporting and logistics firms can take the initiative in the supply of empty containers.
The global logistics sector is struggling to deal with the lack of empty containers triggered by Covid-19, while the demand to export products to Europe and the United States has surged.
In Vietnam, logistics firms, shipping companies and exporters also find it hard to ensure enough empty containers due to their strong reliance on Chinese suppliers. Container rentals have also surged continuously but the number of containers still fails to meet the demand.
Until date, Vietnam has yet to find a manufacturer of shipping containers in the true sense of the word to meet the market demand, except for some small enterprises, but they mainly upgrade and repair broken containers.
Owners of containers are mainly large shipping companies in the world, such as Maersk, MSC, COSCO, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, ONE and Evergreen.
The control of large foreign shipping firms and container manufacturers and lessors, mainly from China, has affected the local shipping container market when the demand changes.
By Lan Nhi
