SOUTHEAST
ASIA TRADE
Protection
racket
38 December 2019 www.airlogisticsinternational.com
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Taking a closer look at the hostilities,
David Smith fi nds that the US-China
trade war is actually benefi tting certain
countries in the Asian region.
Recent fi gures from IATA
indicate that the USChina
trade war has had
a profound effect on air freight
in the Asia Pacifi c region,
which declined by 5% year-onyear
in the fi rst eight months
of 2019. But the broad fi gures
for Asia Pacifi c conceal wide
divergences. In many respects,
Southeast Asian countries,
especially Vietnam, but
also Thailand, Malaysia and
Singapore, are benefi tting from
the trade wars. Vietnamese
imports to the US, for example,
rose 34.8% year-on-year in
the fi rst nine months of 2019,
according to data from the
research company IHS Markit.
Figures from the Vietnamese
Government predict a 10% rise
in air cargo volumes this year,
to reach 2.2m tonnes by 2020.
“When we talk about
air cargo in Southeast Asia,
all roads lead to Vietnam,
where we’ve seen the most
spectacular growth,” stresses
Frederic Horst, the Managing
Director of the Luxembourgbased
research fi rm, Cargo
Facts Consulting. “This year,
Vietnam’s air cargo sector has
been riding on the back of
the growth in trade to the US.
When you compare the rise of nearly 35% with the fall in China’s
imports to the US of 13%, it tells a powerful story.” Horst says
that Vietnam has benefi ted most because its growth is exportdriven,
whereas economic growth in Malaysia and Indonesia has
been more consumer-driven.
Manufacturing bases
The growth of air cargo in Vietnam is intimately linked with the
development of manufacturing bases there. Western clothing
giants, including Converse, Gap, H&M, Lacoste, Reebok and
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