WHAT HAPPENED
Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) is reviewing relevant legal documents, studying the preparation of a draft Law on Logistics, and advancing two institutional innovations: a national logistics office and a national logistics database. This was reported on September 14, 2026, by VnEconomy following a seminar in Hanoi held on September 11.
Formally, this continues the line set by Government Decision No. 2229/QD-TTg of October 9, 2025 — the "Strategy for the Development of Vietnam's Logistics Services for 2025–2035 with a Vision to 2050" (ThĆ° Viện Pháp Luáşt). The strategy explicitly provides for coordination mechanisms and data digitalization as a condition for sector growth of 12–15% per year.
Substantively, the new step is not about roads and ports, but about governance. The office is to become a "bridge" between business and government agencies, while the database is to consolidate information from the Ministry of Transport, customs, statistics, and port operators into a single system. The idea is also being promoted by the industry association VLA, and the World Bank has long recommended creating a Vietnam Logistics Statistical System (VLSS) — official logistics statistics instead of fragmented estimates.
WHAT IT MEANS
For a Russian seller who sources from factories in Binh Duong and Ho Chi Minh City and ships through marketplaces, Vietnamese logistics is not abstract macroeconomics but concrete days and dollars. According to Vietnam News (December 2025), Vietnam's logistics market was valued at $45–50 billion, about 10% of GDP, with sector growth of 14–16% per year in prior periods. At the same time, estimates of logistics costs diverge radically: the World Bank in its materials cited a figure of around 20% of GDP, while the strategy aims to reduce costs to 12–15% of GDP by 2035. The gap between "now" and the "target" is precisely the zone where the reform is supposed to deliver an effect.
What actually changes for operations. First: transparency of timelines. The national database, if it works not as a reporting document but as a live service, will make it possible to compare the actual time cargo takes through Cat Lai and Cai Mep against the norm. Today, a seller learns about a port backlog from their agent — that is, with a delay of a day or two. Second: predictability of tariffs. A unified statistical system is the basis for anti-dumping control and for understanding exactly where the markup is formed: at the freight forwarder, at the port, or on the last mile.
Third, less obvious: the office as a negotiating platform. If it receives a mandate to collect business proposals directly, foreign buyers, including Russian ones, will have a legal feedback channel — not through an association, but through a formalized procedure. This matters because the typical problems of Russian sellers in Vietnam are not "bad ports" but inconsistent documents: certificate of origin, phytosanitary control, labeling requirements — all of these fall under different agencies.
The risks are also concrete. Institutional reform almost always means a transition period: new requirements for electronic document flow, mandatory registration in systems, possible fees for data access. Small freight forwarders, of which there are many in Ho Chi Minh City, may not pass the digital filter — and then some of the usual intermediaries will leave the market. For a seller, this means growing dependence on large 3PL operators and, in the short term, a likely 5–10% increase in service costs at the moment systems are introduced.
VIETSMART EXPERT COMMENTARY
Every week I see the same picture in operations in Ho Chi Minh City: a seller signs a contract with a factory, the factory promises "shipment in 7 days," but in reality the cargo sits in consolidation for 12–14 days because the freight forwarder is waiting to fill the container. No national database will fix this instantly — but it will provide a tool for verification: if the system shows the average consolidation time for a route, you will have an argument in negotiations, not just trust in someone's word.
What we would do right now if we were a Russian entrepreneur. Not wait for the law to come into force, but record current metrics for each Vietnamese route: actual transit from factory to port, customs clearance time, share of downtime. When the reform starts changing the rules, you will have a baseline for comparison — and you will see whether things got better or worse, instead of relying on press releases.
CONCLUSIONS AND WHAT TO DO
The reform of Vietnamese logistics is a medium-term story with a horizon of 2027–2035, but it is worth preparing for it in advance, because you are signing contracts with Vietnamese partners today.
- Record baseline metrics for each route: time from batch readiness at the factory to exit from the port, customs clearance time, last-mile cost. Without these numbers, you will not be able to assess the effect of the reform.
- Ask your Vietnamese supplier for written confirmation of whether they work with electronic data interchange (EDI) systems and whether they participate in the national single window. If not, this is a risk point when transitioning to new requirements.
- Review contracts: add a clause on allocating responsibility for downtime tied to logistics system data, not to correspondence. Specify who bears the costs if digital registration of cargo is delayed.
- Do not concentrate on a single freight forwarder. Keep an alternative partner on each route — the transition period when government systems are introduced often knocks out small players.
- Follow MoIT publications and materials on logistics.gov.vn: announcements about the database launch timeline and requirements for market participants appear there first.
Vietnam's logistics is moving from a "we negotiate on the spot" mode to a "we work by data" mode. Those who prepare their processes for this transition in advance will gain an advantage in speed and in negotiating position.
Source: VnEconomy EN — Business, September 14, 2026