VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HCMC INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

HL Cargo - International Freight Forwarder

Internship Report
Vu Le Bich Tram

Supervised by: Mr. Nguyen Nhu Tung

Submitted to: Ms. Le Hong Nhung

Start date: Jun 23, 2014

End date: Aug 15, 2014
Number of internship days: 40 days
(5 days/ week - From Mon to Fri)

2013 - 2014

Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................3

About HL Cargo

1. General Information.............................................................................................................. 5
2. Company History..................................................................................................................5
3. About the company..............................................................................................................6
4. Organizational structure......................................................................................................7
a.

Organizational Structure.......................................................................................................................... 7

b.

Responsibility and Function of Departments............................................................................................7

5. Company Performance.........................................................................................................8
a.

Import/ Export Turnover........................................................................................................................ 8

b.

Market Segmentation by Geography....................................................................................................9

c.

Financial Highlights............................................................................................................................... 9

Internship Activities
1. Activities during the internship period...........................................................................11
a. Daily schedule........................................................................................................................................ 11
b.Activities................................................................................................................................................. 11

2.

Activities of department and its role to the company.............................................14

3.

Performance evaluation of the department................................................................15

4.

Suggestions for thesis topic..........................................................................................15

Assessment & Orientation

1.

Skills and qualifications gained during internship.................................................18

2.

Internships influence on the future career plans....................................................19

3.

Correlation between internship activities and knowledge.....................................19

Conclusions
Key conclusion..........................................................................................................................20
General observation about shipping and forwarding sector........................................20
References http://www.hlcargo.com.......................................................................................20

Executive Summary
This report aims to provide detailed information about my two-month internship period at HL Cargo,
including the company information, my activities during this internship program, evaluation about the
company performance, and how this internship benefits and affect me through skills and experience
acquired and observed and my intentions for future thesis topic as well as career.
Generally, HL Cargo is an experienced forwarding and shipping agency, provides transport solutions to
businesses wanting to send packages, crates and containers from one country to another and it act as
third parties in arranging exports on behalf of exporters/ importers.
During this period, my main activities were to get used to new working environment, learning new
concepts and knowledge, receiving duties and tasks assigned by my mentor and other partners in the
department. I was also trained as a sales employees by joining training sessions, go to ports to behold
the realistic activities.
After this program, I can enrich my real-life working experience and skills to prepare for my future jobs.
Furthermore, it also helps me to have an orientation for the thesis topic, as well as add more choices for
my future career.

About HL Cargo

1. General Information

Full title: HL Cargo Freight Forwarder & Shipping Agency

Trade name: HL Cargo., Ltd
Tel: (+84)854107108
Fax: (+84) 854 110 176/ 54 110 117
Website: www.hlcargo.com
Email: office@hlcargo.com
Main Office:
HCMC - 5th Floor Thien Son Plaza - 800 Nguyen Van Linh Street, Tan Phu Ward, District 7
Branches:
Ha Noi - 5th Floor Tran Phu Building, Group 24, Yen Hoa Ward, Cau Giay District

2. Company History

HL Cargo can be considered an old hand in forwarding and shipping sector. It was established on April
1, 2000; and became one of the pioneers in this field. During the initial time of establishment, it had to
deal with many difficulties resulting from lacking of experience in management and doing business.
However, after only three years of operation (2000 - 2003), the company was able to gain significant
achievements as planned in the sector of freight forwarding and created its initial reputation and built
their trust in customers in this sector. Not only this, the company also expanded the business into other
fields. And after nearly fifteen years, HL Cargo has possessed a worldwide network as well as a firm
position in freight forwarder and shipping service. There are some of the highlights in the company
history listed as follows:
In 2004, HL Cargo became an ordinary member of VIFFAS (Vietnam Freight Forwarding
Association)
In 2006, HL Cargo won the Golden Brand Awards from Vietbrand Communication Network

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In 2007, established Van Thinh Phu company- a sister company, which specializes in distributing
food and drinks, chemicals and spices for food processing, mostly imported from Korea. (
vanthinhphu.com )
In 2008, established Softek Solutions, which operates in software and application development
sector. (Softek.vn)

HL Cargo also established a close partnership with many export & import enterprises (Minh Long
Ceramic and Porcelain ware), airlines (Cathay Pacific, Air France, and British Airways), shipping lines
(Evergreen, Hanjin, Yangmin) and a global network of agencies spreading from Asia to Europe,
America, South Africa, etc. In addition, it is proud to be an exclusive member of IFA (International
Forwarding Association) in Vietnam.

3. About the company

HL Cargo is a limited liability company, shared between three partners; however, it is under the control
and management of Mr. Dao Thanh Luu. He is the CEO of HL Cargo together with its sister companies
introduced in the previous part.
a. Products and services
As preliminarily mentioned, HL Cargo is a freight forwarding agent. Since this may not be a familiar
concept to business administration, I would like to provide a short explanation: A freight forwarder
agent, (also called a forwarder) is a person or company hired by individuals or corporations, who have
demands of exchanging goods from country to country, sometimes domestically. A forwarder plays as a
mediator, who organizes shipments and gets goods from the manufacturer or producer to a final point
of distribution.
The company provides customers with services including consultancy, documentation preparation,
customs, etc; which relates to supply chain management. To be more specific, HL Cargo offer
customers following significant services:
- Consulting on charges and costs including freight costs, port charges, special documentation,
insurance and freight handling fees.

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- Preparing and filing compulsory documentation such as the bill of lading (B/L), certificate of origin
(C/O), documents for custom clearance, and sending appropriate documents to the seller, the buyer
or a paying bank.
- Advising on the most appropriate mode of cargo transport, find the shortest routs with reasonable
price offers and making arrangements with shipping lines, carriers to pack and load the cargo.
- Reserving the necessary cargo space on a vessel, aircraft, train, or truck.
- Making arrangements with overseas customs brokers to ensure that the goods and documents
comply with customs regulations.
b. Customers
Individuals and companies who seek help from HL Cargo are export/import companies, or those are in
need of sending or receiving shipments to/ from other countries. Some of customers who have
collaboration with the company are: Minh Long, Van Thinh Phu, Dat Tin, Hop Long, Dai Thanh Wood,
Southern Graphite, Blue, and Tan Thuan Thai

4. Organizational structure

a. Organizational Structure
HL Cargo is a small enterprise with a flat structure of management; comprises of 20 employees and
divided into five departments. This scale of the company is relatively small in common, however, it is
considered medium in forwarding business sector. This scale and simple structure of the company
enables it to be easy to manage, allow effective communication between managers and employees,
ensure smooth workflow and make the information flow accurately and rapidly throughout departments.
Also, each department is in charge of separate jobs; however, all of them still coordinate with one
another and work effectively. The following chart presents the organization hierarchy of HL Cargo.

(Source: HR Department)

b. Responsibility and Function of Departments

Directors (2 employees)
- Be responsible for business operation and management
- Meet, discuss, negotiate and deal with contracts
- Set goals, orientation, strategies for further developments
Sales Department (7 employees)
- Seek for and persuade potential customers; whereas take care and keep track with old customers
- Provide detailed information about price, company policies... of the service
- Give advices on appropriate routs, mode of transportation and explain relative documentations to
customers
- Inform customers about service progress
Operation Department (5 employees)
- Check the completion and validity of documentation
- Fill in customs declaration; carry out customs procedures, registration dossiers

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- Operate loading and unloading process; appoint stevedores and carriers
Documentation Department (2 employees)
- Prepare required documentation, such as bill of lading ( B/L), certificate of origin ( C/O)
- Be responsible for contacting related parties ( e.g.: customers, shipping lines ) to obtain necessary
documentation and assure those documentations' accuracy
- Organize and keep documentation as archives
IT Department (1 employees)
- Install and repair the entire computer system
- Build website and continually upload news, information of the company onto the website
Accounting Department (4 employees)
- Record the transactions; keep and pay bills
- Pay the creditors and employees; collect and monitor debtors
HR Department (1 employees)
- Find and contact potential candidates
- Test, interview and recruit
- Buy necessary things for the company (stationery, washing chemicals...) and take care of the whole
company.
5. Company Performance
a. Import/ Export Turnover

Table 1: Import/ Export Turnover (2010- 2012)

(In USD)
Import/Exp
ort
Turnover
Export

Year
2010

2011

2012

402,5
68

382,5
26

586,1
25

Growth Rate
2010/20 2011/20
11
12

- 5%

53%

10
276,4
17
678,9
85

Import
Total

302,8
28
685,3
54

394,6
40
980,7
65

10%

3%

100%
80%

40.71

44.19

40.24

60%
40%
20%
0%

Import
59.29

55.81

59.76

2010

2011

2012

Export

Figure1: Percentage of import and export turnover from 2010-2012

(Source: Accounting Department)
In general, import and export turnover increases over year. In which, the percentage of export
turnover is always higher than those of import turnover
b. Market Segmentation by Geography

East Asia has always been the main market of the company, which occupies about 50% of the
market value. However, in recent years, the company also tends to spread out to other potential
markets, such as Europe and America.
Figure 2: Company market segmentation by location in 2012 ( %)

15.78

Europe

2.72
30.57

Northeast Asia
Southeast Asia
America

21.5

Others
29.43

(Source: Accounting Department)

c. Financial Highlights

Table 2: Financial Performance of HL Cargo in 2010-2012 (million VND)

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Revenue
Cost

2010
16,771
13,545

Year
2011
16,895
13,419

2012
23,120
19,121

Profit

3,226

3,746

3,999

(Source: Accounting Department)

Internship
Activities

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1. Activities during the internship period

In this section, I would like to provide in details the information about my activities and
responsibilities during my internship, as well as difficulties that I have to deal with in that period.
a. Daily schedule
At HL Cargo, I worked as a full-time sale staff in Sales department, and my mentor was Ms. Ngoc
Trong, who used to be also a salesperson and then promoted to be HR manager.
As a full-time employee, my regular day work started at 8.30 am and ended at 5.30 pm, there was
one-hour break from 12 pm to 1 pm. My company operates from Monday to Friday plus Saturday
morning; however, I went to work from Monday to Friday (5 days per week)
b. Activities
I would like to divide my activities during the internship progress into two periods: the first four
weeks and the second four weeks, for your convenience.

The first four weeks

At International University, my major is marketing in school of Business Administration; however, at

HL Cargo, my intern position is as a sale staff. Moreover, as Marketing student, forwarding and
shipping is such a totally new concept to me; I have never read or had any knowledge about this.
Therefore, for the first couples of weeks, I have to spend time on reading relating documentations
and study about definitions, concepts, etc

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- Knowledge acquirement
To be more specific, on the first day of the internship, I was given two sets of documentations, one
was exporting cargo documentations and the other one was importing cargo documentations. Each
of which comprised of several papers such as bills of lading (B/L), delivery order (D/O), invoices,
packing lists, shipping notes, etc. Every of them were first shown to me; therefore I have to go
online and search for their functions, definitions, meanings, as well as how each elements listed on
them are used. During the learning process, I had found out some major forum and websites, which
provide many useful materials about shipping and forwarding, for example: vietship.vn and
vietforward.com. Afterwards, I moved on with more some of necessary knowledge like Incoterms,
international payment methods, certificate of origin (C/O), customs clearance procedures... These
are essential information that every employees in this sector needs to know; so I spent much of the
time to study them thoroughly.
Not simply reading, all the information collected were written down and made as notes because I did
not want to learn by rote. Moreover, I always took this internship seriously; therefore my intent was to
really understand what I had read, and memorized them, in case I was asked to perform some
duties relating to them and so I would have already prepared myself

as much as possible.

Therefore, I applied some learning techniques which I usually used to prepare for exams in IU. I
listed down all the information above into different topics, combined information selected and
collected from different online sources and wrote them down on separate sheets of paper. For each
topic, I divided into subsections; for instance: functions, contents, classification of C/O and then
highlighted them so that I could easily revised later. For some contents with different versions like
Incoterms (one published in 2000 and the other one published in 2010, both are valid to use), I also
made comparison between them and detected the changes; and this action was highly evaluated by
my mentor.
During the studying progress, my obstacle was that those concepts were too unfamiliar to a
Marketing student (as I already mentioned); for this reason, I took me a lot of time to struggle and
process those new things. For each topic, I spent at least 3 -4 days to learn them thoroughly.
Exclusively, it took me two weeks to finish reading and understanding Incoterms.

The second four weeks

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After having acquired as well as understood basic concepts, I began the new stage of the
internship, which was very appealing to me. It was that I was allowed to follow operation staffs to
visit ports and airports and beheld the customs clearance procedures. During this time, there were
also two new official salespeople, who were under training programs as well; hence, I joined them
and we started to be trained together. Under dedicated instructions of operation staffs, we had
opportunities to visit Saigon Newport, Cat Lai Port, two warehouses (SCSC and TCS Warehouse)
near Tan Son Nhat Airport. These activities helped me visualize the customs procedures I had read
in the first few weeks before that. The detailed activities are as follows:
- Trips to harbors and airports

At the Saigon New Port:

I was introduced to the customs clearance process for export goods steps by steps together with
container booking procedure. Besides, I was taken to some depots within the place and observe
the progress of unloading goods from a truck, then measuring, weighting, and finally moved to
inside depots. Additionally, I visited container yard and saw stevedores loading cargo onto
containers.

At the Cat Lai Port:

Similarly, at the Cat Lai Port, I also witnessed operation staffs conducting customs clearance for
both import and export goods and the progress of goods inspection on import goods performed
by the customs crew. However, as Cat Lai port is much bigger than New Port, it required a lot of
movements between two areas: container yard and documentations at Cat Lai.

At the TCS and SCSC warehouse:

These two warehouses are used for customs clearance procedure for goods transportation by
airways. The progress is different from that of seaway; therefore it was necessary to come to the
place as well.
The visits to ports and airports enabled me to have a clearer and closer look to operation
profession of forwarding agents and customs procedures in practice. Literally, the whole process
is set up steps by steps already; all we need is to follow the guidance and conduct them.
Nonetheless, in the reality, the job requires much more effort, flexibility and skills than any books
or regulations provide - from my perspectives. If things work smoothly, it would take about half of

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a day to finish delivering or receiving goods. However, most of the time, it would take a day, or
even 2-3 days to accomplish the duty.
During this time, I did not have troubles in learning new things since all of the operations staffs
that were in charge of instructing me were not only very kind, enthusiastic in delivering
knowledge, which I was very appreciated, but also knowledgeable and skillful. They always
showed friendly attitudes and were ready to answers any questions; in addition, they were eager
to share with me their experience in solving problems, or some extended information which no
books could teach. Perhaps, the only minor difficulty was that the routes to those places (sea
ports and airports) were quite far, and sometimes those places were dangerous themselves.
Especially in Cat Lai port, where there are many container trucks, reachstackers, cranes,
container handlers keep moving around. In fact, there were many accidents occurred due to
people being crashed by those equipments. However, it was not a big deal for me.
- Co-worker assistance
Besides, during my internship period, I was also assigned some simple tasks to support my coworkers when they were busy. Specifically, those tasks were:
Go to the bank, send or withdraw money for a specific job requirement ( such as paying tax,
sending commission to partners)
Photocopy, scan and arrange required documentations, dossiers
Fetch bills of lading from shipping line enterprises, some of which were : Evergreen, Marina,
Wanhai
Get delivery order from shipping agency such as: CJ Express, CP World, China Shipping,
Heung A
Come to Department of Immigration and Emigration to get approval documentation for clients
At first, these tasks seemed to be simple a not very useful and some may consider them
insignificant; however, for myself, I gradually that they were quite helpful because they allowed me
to see documentations with my own eyes and all the information I had read could be put into
practice, which enabled me to remember things I had learned without studying by heart.
Additionally, despite the fact that those jobs were not very complicated, it did not mean everything
was fluent. Sometimes, problems happened when the instructions provided by my partners were

16
not the same as when I actually came to the places where I fetched required documents. And in
that case, it was required that myself needed to flexibly find solutions.
2. Activities of department and its role to the company
A typical day of a sales staff in HL Cargo starts with approaching clients via either by phone calls,
emails or by direct meetings. For new salespeople, as they do not have customers database; they
are supposed to look for potential clients by browsing directory of import/export companies, and
then introduce and persuade clients to use services. And the newcomers must be very flexible and
knowledgeable as well as skillful enough to be able to convince new clients to use the companys
services. It is easier for experienced ones because they already possess a number of clients who
already used their services before. Sometimes, when those clients have demands, they will
automatically contact and ask for services. However, the experienced still have to seek for potential
clients in the same way as the newcomers do. The following diagram summarizes the process of
selling service of a typical salesperson, despite new or experienced one.

In any business sectors, salespeople are always important and contribute huge proportion in a
companys success. It is not exceptional to forwarding and shipping sector. Indeed, sales
department plays an essential role since they have to perform various functions, which are a

17
marketer, the company face, customer service, and potential client hunters at the same time. They
are the only team who need to effectively communicate and well collaborate with both clients and
other departments within the company. Furthermore, they also endure the direct pressure from
upper level of management and the burdens on their shoulders are really tough since they are the
main crew of profit earners for the company. In general, sales department can be best described as
the backbone of the whole company.
3. Performance evaluation of the department
At the present time, the sales department is operating smoothly and effectively under the joint
management of the two directors of the two sectors (Air Freight and Sea Freight). Sales team at HL
Cargo is the combination of the young, enthusiastic, and dynamic individuals together with the
experienced, knowledgeable, sophisticated experts with nearly ten- year experience in forwarding and
shipping. This coordination in sales department, which plays an important role as mentioned in the
previous part, enables HL Cargo to stand out and gain its reputation, specifically in this sector. For
experienced exporting/ importing companies, who have used forwarding services for a long time, HL
Cargo is not an unfamiliar name and that HL Cargo is considered a senior among forwarders.
On the other side, I highly evaluate working atmosphere, disciplines, and communication among
employees in sales department in particular and the whole company in general about. During the
working time, everybody focuses on their jobs and they barely talk (or gossip among female
employees) to one another. If any communication needed, they will exchange majorly via Skype or
Microsoft Outlook mail system. In contrast, during break time, they behave like family members and
there is hardly any gap between upper and lower levels. One special thing is that I realize everyone in
the company calls CEO Mr. Luu Uncle Luu or Bro Luu. In general, HL Cargo is an employee that is
worth working for since it provides professional but friendly environment for any fresh graduates.
In spite of the good performance of the department, there is a temporary downfall in numbers of
bookings. Objectively speaking, this results from the severe competency of the market. For the past few
years, a number of logistic companies like HL Cargo have emerged, leading to the variety of choices for
exporting/importing companies. In the crisis time of economy, cost-saving is a priority to them and the
forwarders offer lower price will have advantages over the others. Sometimes, some clients do not care
much about the quality of services while HL Cargo pay much attention to the quality; therefore, the
price it offers is considered a little but higher than others. Moreover, in order to preserve the companys

18
revenue, one of HL Cargos compulsory regulations is that it does not allow clients owe charges, which
partly make them less attractive. On the other side, I believe the shortage of sales employees is a
subjective reason. There are only 7 employees in the department, including two newcomers, who are
still under 3-month probation period. Hence, it is obvious that the workload of each individual in the
department is very heavy since salespeople are in charge of several functions the same time.
4. Suggestions for thesis topic
After working for two months as a sales employee at HL Cargo, I came up with some ideas, which I
may consider topic choices for future thesis. One of them is marketing solutions for forwarding agencies
like HL Cargo. To be more specific, I would like to conduct a research on factors that affect clients when
choosing forwarding services and find out whether marketing has the most significant effect. With my
research, I hope that I am able to help forwarders solve the problem of recent declining numbers of
bookings and increase the customer loyalty to the company.
I would like to explain in details about my choice. First of all, from my observations and researches,
normally forwarders do not possess a separate Marketing department. As already mentioned,
salespeople play a role as a marketer simultaneously; from which I believe that it may lead to
overwhelming workload for them sometimes, and they may not perform efficiently for both roles. Also,
in my point of view, calling to any exporting/importing companies that may be found via online yellow
pages website or directories is the most regular technique to approach potential clients yet not the most
productive way for long term. The rationales are that if every forwarder does call in the same way, those
companies will get fed up with receiving dozens of the same calls per day and hear the same way of
self-introduction. So, the percentage of being denied is understandably high. Moreover, it is not always
that all the companies you call have demands on goods exports or imports; therefore, it will be a waste
of time. To sum up, the research (if conducted) will possibly provide an insight whether a separate
Marketing department is necessary to let potential clients have chances to actively approach the
forwarders, study those forwarders via marketing channels objectively rather than only hear advertising
words. Additionally, it is also opportunity for the forwarding company to show their profession,
strengths, and their effort in taking care of the company face in an objective way.

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Assessment & Orientation

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1. Skills and qualifications gained during internship

After two-month internship period at HL Cargo, I believe I was able to obtain precious experience and
knowledge. The first thing I have to mention is that the great amount of knowledge gained about
forwarding and shipping sector by having spent plenty of time reading and studying, combined with
practical trips and actual papers and dossiers. Particularly, the basic knowledge about shipping and

21
forwarding as well as relating procedures consisted of: Incoterms; customs clearance procedures;
concepts, functions, classification, usage of documentations such as certificate of origin (C/O), bill of
lading (B/L), delivery order (D/O), packing list (P/L), invoice ; international payment methods. Major
knowledge was collected via two well-known and trustworthy forums, exclusively for shipping and
forwarding sectors: vietship.vn and vietforward.com together with instructions, advices from my mentor
and other salespeople in the department. Another assessment is that I can behold and acquire sales
techniques. I was lucky enough to be capable of joining training sessions organized exclusively for new
sales staff. All of the sessions were about sales techniques, solving problem skills when dealing with
difficult situations and lectured by the CEO- Mr. Dao Thanh Luu. And also, trips to ports I mentioned
above were a part of training process for new sales staff; hence, it could be said that I was treated as a
sales trainee.
Besides, to be honest, chances to come to observe directly customs procedures did help me open my
eyes, about how the real world can be so different and much more complex than theories or any written
regulations. There are some underlying ethical dilemmas that only the insiders understand. For
example, anyone who wants to ensure that your good clearance procedure can be conducted quickly
and smoothly, you have to accept to give the customs officer, to whom your dossiers are assigned, an
amount of money, at least 100,000 VND. And I realize that that amount of money is normal, or even a
compulsory rule according to operation staffs, who are in charge of dealing with those customs
procedure. Likewise, owning a good relationship with the customs officers is also an advantage. Once
gotten acquainted with those no-one-tell-but-you-have-to-understand regulations and established a
good networking, the customs procedure will be much more simplified and troubles barely occur.
Finally, assessment from the internship period is that I was able to experience a real-life working
environment, observations about how people in office behave, communicate, exchange information to
one another and to senior managers. During my internship period, the interpersonal skills, which are
the life skills I use every day to communicate and interact with other people, individually and in groups
are good for me. Not only how I communicate with others, but also I got confidence and I could prove
that I have the ability to listen, understand task and duties assigned. Through this internship, I found
that I matured and I gained a variety of new perspectives, such as problem solving skill, diversity,
effective communication, and teamwork, attention to detail, time management, personal empowerment,

22
self-confidence, and responsibility. Last but not least, establishing a good relationship with my partners
at HL Cargo is also good assessment as well.

Internships influence on the future career plans

Before taking this internship program, honestly, I did have some interest in logistics sector. But at that
time, there were not many chances for me to know more deeply about it .The opportunity of working at
HL Cargo has enable me to have a closer look to logistics job and I decided to consider looking for
some positions in this sector as a choice for my future career.
Correlation between internship activities and knowledge
As already discussed in previous parts, my major at IU is marketing, which is totally different from the
sector my company is operating. Although it is hard to say that I could use any of my knowledge I
learned at school to support me in internship activities, I am completely sure that learning everything in
English in IU had helped me pretty much. Since I have already been used to reading materials, looking
up for information, etc in English when in IU, I could search for them and be easy to understand
terms originated from English. Also, when a term was not explained clearly in one language
(Vietnamese or English); I could check it again in the other one. And I realize that learning in English in
IU is an advantage and really helpful for the progress of approach new knowledge during my internship
program. Additionally, preparing presentations, project, etc at IU, enabled me to learn new things
effectively as I could apply those learning methods often used during studying progress.

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Conclusions
Key conclusion
The two-month internship period really provides great chances to acquire and experience new things in
reality as well as establish new relationship. All of the activities during this period gave me a deep
access to a brand new sector: shipping and forwarding. Also, I believe sales techniques as well as skills
gained during this time will be much helpful for my future jobs and I have more self- confidence in my
ability. To conclude, this internship is very beneficial for myself as this can be consider a step to prepare
for what I may face in the future jobs.
General observation about shipping and forwarding sector
Vietnam freight forwarding industry only develops in the recent years despite the fact that it possesses
some advantages of development, such as geographical advantage: long cost line that runs along the
country, deep-water ports, international airports, railways, etc. The reasons are Vietnam has just joined
WTO for several years, and the governments also have only started to provide policies encouraging
enterprise, the world economic crisis, and information technology only flourishes for the past few years.
Freight forwarders in Vietnam have to face a lot of difficulties due to the expert and employee shortage,
poor quality and insufficiency of facilities, and especially the strong competency of foreign forwarders.
According to VIFFAS (Vietnam Freight Forwarder Association), generally, there are more than 1000

24
domestic enterprises and 25 foreign companies operating in Logistics sector in Vietnam. Of 1000
domestic companies, about 800 are operating in freight forwarding and 70 percent of them are
privately-owned enterprises with medium and small scales and provide value added services such as
customs clearance, cargo transportation. Almost no companies in this field are capable of provide a
package service for customers. Meanwhile, the number of 25 foreign companies takes up of 80 percent
of the market share and dominates high value added activities. Therefore, freight forwarders in Vietnam
still have to pay a lot of attention and effort to stimulate the country freight forwarding industry.

References
http://www.hlcargo.com
http://www.vietnamshipper.com/default.asp?action=news_detail&atcid=24904&chnlid=14