Import-export companies grouse about shipping fees Import-export companies are complaining about new fees imposed by the Cat Lai Port Authority as well as surcharges added by international shipping firms.   Truong Thuy Lien, director of the Lien Phat Shoes Export Company in Binh Duong, complained that shipping firms have been raising fees regularly, once every three months, without explaining why. “The freights and container transportation fees have been on the rise for many years. They have never decreased,” Lien said Shipping agents have begun collecting the “port congestion surcharge” (PCS), thus putting Vietnamese enterprises on tenterhooks. They have also warned clients that they would impose new kinds of surcharges or raise fees. Right after the Cat Lai Port raised the container lifting cost, Mitsui O.S.K Lines (MOL) said that it will charge PCS on all the consignments of imports and exports scheduled to go through the port in early August. The PCS are $50, $100 and $124 per 20-feet, 40-feet and 45-feet containers, respectively. Yang Ming, CMA CGM, OOCL and Wan Hai Vietnam have announced the PCS at VND1.05 million per 20-feet container and VND2.4 million per 45-feet container. Explaining the decision to collect surcharges and the shipping fees, he said this would offset the high operation costs caused by the goods stuck at ports. Meanwhile, CMA CGM Vietnam has announced it will raise the THC (terminal handling charges) on the ships to dock at the ports of Hai Phong, Da Nang, Quy Nhon and HCM City from August 25. The new charges are VND2.794 million per 20-feet container and VND4.268 million per 40-feet container. The director of a foreign-invested electronics enterprise complained that the higher freights and surcharges have made production costs increase sharply, saying that he is considering another port instead of Cat Lai for the company’s imports. “I don’t think the PCS can help settle the deadlock. PCS will only bring benefits to shipping firms, not to goods owners,” he said. A senior executive of a seafood export company said that with the PCS of $100 per 40-feet container, the company would have to pay $100,000 more for its 100 containers of goods. The representative of Hao Thanh Private Enterprise, specializing in importing plastic beads, said the company had to pay VND100 million for 70 imported containers of products and $300 per container in other surcharges. According to Truong Dinh Hoe, chair of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), every container of imports and exports bears dozens of kinds of fees, including THC, container imbalance charge (CIC), container cleaning fee, demurrage charge (frozen goods), storage fee, toll, and many other kinds of fees. The Lien Phat Shoes Company, for example, was once asked to pay VND11 million for a “container repair fee”. As the container was damaged overseas, the ship owner forced the foreign exporter to build floorboards for compensation. However, in Vietnam, the ship owner again asked Lien Phat to pay compensation because the floorboard was built improperly. TBKTSG