Azlan Othman
Officials from the Brunei Freight Forwarders Association (BRUFA) were in Laos recently for a meeting with their counterparts from the ASEAN Freight Forwarders Association (AFFA).
The visit was also to learn more about the logistics link and the potential to tap the market into Brunei Darussalam amid growing interest across the region in opportunities offered by the Laos-China Railway, an important trade link between China and Southeast Asia, as well as to explore potential cooperation and opportunities.
Strategically centrally located within the region, landlocked Laos could transform itself into a regional transit hub that provides access to global markets overland and via rail, sea and air routes.
The Brunei delegation was briefed on Vientiane Logistics Park (VLP) and Thalaleng Dry Port (TDP) in Vientiane, where extensions of the Laos-China Railway and Laos-Thailand Railway meet. The trip was focussed on discussions with the Laos side on transport cooperation, and opportunities and industrial development along the railway corridors.
The Lao and Vietnamese governments develop and operate the packaged Lao Logistics Link (LLL) project.
It includes the Vientiane Logistics Park, Thalaleng Dry Port, Vung Ang seaport in Vietnam’s central Ha Tinh province, a planned railway line linking the seaport to the Lao capital of Vientiane, and a planned dry port in Khammuan province. It expects to fully realise the LLL project within the next five years. Once all these projects within LLL are fully completed as targetted, Laos will become an important connector for the region. The LLL project is part of efforts to realise the Laos government’s policy to transform Laos from a land-locked to a land-link country, which is striving to become an important transport and logistics connector for countries in the region.
Since its inauguration for service in December 2021, the LLL’s Thanaleng Dry Port and VLP – the only one-stop customs clearance for cross-border logistics on the railways – has increasingly recorded busier services.
In the first nine months of last year, as many as 41,000 containers (import, export and transit) passed through the Thanaleng Dry Port.
This new multi-modal transport node serves as a major link between various logistics centres in the region, facilitating cross-border and transit services between countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and China. Through Vung Ang seaport, where the Vietnam government has agreed to increase Laos’ share to 60 per cent, the world-class Thanaleng Dry Port is also offering an option to facilitate cargo exports to countries in the Pacific region.
In addition, with the growing popularity of rail transport, which significantly shortens travel time compared to sea routes, the Lao developer is optimistic that Laos, as a transit hub, would become an important supply chain for the region.
The BRUFA’s aim, according to its website, is “to form regulated forwarding agents, to share the views, voice the opinions and collectively work with all the members, and with the government and private sectors, in promoting the cargo forwarding industry, for the benefit of the nation and all the members”.
“BRUFA believes that training and product knowledge is vital. BRUFA encourages its members to take active participation in conferences, seminars, exhibitions and training programmes.” Meanwhile, the AFFA is a regional intergovernmental organisation comprising 10 Southeast Asian states. As its website noted, the AFFA promotes freight forwarding through intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates cargo transport through tri-service transport amongst its members and Asian states.
The AFFA carries the objectives to unify all freight forwarders in the ASEAN region through national forwarders associations; unify all freight forwarders in the ASEAN region through national forwarders associations; foster, promote, develop and maintain close cooperation between and among freight forwarders in the ASEAN region; to represent members in their collective interests in relation to freight forwarding matters peculiar to the ASEAN region; and to purpose all measures to improve the quality, standard and professionalism of freight forwarders in the ASEAN region as well as to match with the Decade programme.
