Transport and border gates

The same shipment from Guangzhou to Hanoi can take three days or ten, with tens of millions of dong between them, depending on which border gate you use, whether it goes by road or by rail, and how ready the documents were before the truck moved.

This category is written from real shipments on the China, Vietnam, Cambodia corridor, through Huu Nghi, Mong Cai, Chi Ma, Binh Hiep, Moc Bai, Hoa Lu and the Yen Vien interchange rail station. Every figure for time is tied to a specific date and a specific gate, because clearance time moves with the season, with policy on both sides, and with whether the other side happens to be on holiday that day.

The reader I picture is a cargo owner choosing between options, and a forwarder who has to answer a client without guessing. So the content stays on three questions: how long this leg actually takes, which document has to be where, and when a shipment is held, what it is held for.

Transit cargo to Cambodia is kept separate, because it is not an import into Vietnam and yet stays under customs supervision for the whole journey. Confusing those two is the source of most of the incidents I see.

Sections in this category

• Road transport China, Vietnam, Cambodia. Time per leg, formalities at each gate, choosing a gate by cargo type.
• Rail transport China, Vietnam. Nanning to Yen Vien: when it beats road and when it does not.
• Transit and transshipment to Cambodia. Documents for each leg, changing mode mid route, formalities at Moc Bai and Hoa Lu.
• Delivery terms and freight. Who pays the freight, who carries the risk, and the value for duty.

Published articles