IFC-backed YCH Logistics to boost Vietnam’s ties with regional trade bloc

Singapore’s leading logistics service provider YCH Group is making strong investments in Vietnam to capitalize on the ASEAN Economic Community, where PwC forecasts intra-region trade could exceed $375 billion per year by 2025.

Under a collaboration agreement YCH signed in February with IFC, the World Bank Group financial arm will support the development of the iconic Vietnam SuperPort project in Vinh Phuc province near Hanoi. IFC is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets.

Following the deal, YCH and private conglomerate T&T Group - the Singaporean developer’s Vietnamese partner in the $300 million project - signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on commitments to jointly develop the Phuoc Vinh Dong Logistics Area in Long An province’s Can Giuoc district near Ho Chi Minh City, expected to enhance the success of their Vietnam SuperPort project.

The Vietnam SuperPort project is envisaged as an integrated dry port and advanced supply chain center to support the predicted surge in trade in the country. T&T and YCH had established their joint venture T&Y SuperPort Vinh Phuc JSC (T&Y) to carry out the project.

Under the collaboration deal between T&Y and IFC, the global institution will leverage its breadth of knowledge in developing and investing in dry ports and container terminals around the world, as well as its strong track record in project structuring, to help YCH and T&T develop a bankable and sustainable project.

Vietnam SuperPort is the first multimodal logistics hub in Vietnam, and is part of the ASEAN Smart Logistics Network that aims to integrate the regional economic bloc by 2025. The hub will cover more than 83 hectares, with a designed cargo capacity of about 850,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), with phase one set to be completed in stages between 2022 and 2023, and phase two to be finished in stages between 2024 and 2025.

As manufacturing has been shifting to Vietnam, the Southeast Asian country has emerged as a global manufacturing hub, while growing logistics and e-commerce have been among the fastest-expanding sectors in the nation. Against this backdrop, Vietnam SuperPort is expected to further fuel the nation’s logistics development

With its strategic foothold near the capital of Hanoi, the SuperPort will be a key connecting node for global and regional trade and supply chains between China, Vietnam, ASEAN, and other regional and international markets.

The Vietnam SuperPort and its environs of about 20 industrial parks will show the advantages of multi-modal transportation through its road, rail, air and sea linkages, with road and rail linking China’s Yunnan province, Kunming city, to Hanoi and eventually ending in Vietnam's northern city of Hai Phong.

The journey for the project started in November 2020 when the ASEAN Smart Logistics Network was launched to support the ASEAN Connectivity Master Plan 2025, when PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) forecast that intra-region trade could exceed $375 billion per year. The regional network is a collaborative platform that aims to promote logistics connectivity and integration within the bloc.

Being the second in the ASEAN Smart Logistics Network after the Vietnamese hub is the Phnom Penh Logistics Complex (PPLC) in Cambodia, with an estimated investment of $200 million.

Earlier this May in Phnom Penh, YCH and its Cambodian partner WorldBridge Group signed a deal to co-develop PPLC, expected to serve as a logistics infrastructure facility. For its part, Cambodia’s government has already set logistics as a priority sector under its newly passed investment law, qualifying for generous tax incentives. This year, Cambodia chairs ASEAN.

Shortly before signing the PPLC development, YCH and the Philippine provincial government of Batangas inked an MoU to formalize the joint interest to co-develop smart logistics infrastructure in enhancing connectivity in the ASEAN Smart Logistics Network. Batangas is about 100 kilometers south of capital Manila.