The Vietnam International Financial Center in Ho Chi Minh City (VIFC-HCMC) has launched the International Maritime Financial Ecosystem (IMFE) to capture the billions of US dollars flowing offshore.
IMFE – one of VIFC-HCMC’s four strategic pillars – was unveiled at a forum hosted by VIFC-HCMC in collaboration with Gemadept Corporation and the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies on 21 May.
The platform is designed to localise maritime financial capital and services; connect financial institutions, banks, insurance companies, shipping lines, logistics enterprises, and international organisations within an integrated ecosystem, bringing the port-to-finance model to life in Vietnam; and to introduce the first maritime financial products and initiatives, creating mechanisms for Vietnamese enterprises to access financing, insurance, and risk management tools domestically rather than through foreign intermediaries.
IMFE has been launched in response to the rapid rise of southern Vietnam's port infrastructure. Ho Chi Minh City is home to Cat Lai Port – ranked among the world's top 21, handling approximately 7.5 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) annually – and Gemalink International Port in Cai Mep, Thi Vai, which is capable of receiving ultra-large container vessels. These existing assets are set to be joined by the Can Gio International Transshipment Port, a 571-hectare project with a projected capacity of 17 million TEUs per year.
An industry report by Roland Berger discussed at the forum that benchmarked leading global maritime financial hubs illustrated how Vietnam's domestic value retention can be raised from the current 4-5% to 15% by 2035.
The forum also saw the introduction of the first maritime financial products and initiatives to be developed within the VIFC-HCMC framework.
While the total annual trade transaction value flowing through the region – encompassing goods, logistics services, and related financial demand – is estimated at over $1trn, most high-value maritime financial services generating the largest profit margin continue to flow through developed offshore maritime financial centres.
With Vietnam currently capturing only around 4-5% of these financial transaction values domestically, leaving an estimated $6-8bn in potential value accessible but unrealised, there is scope to complete the maritime value chain and retain these economic benefits onshore, the forum heard, but Vietnam must evolve beyond purely physical cargo transshipment to develop a comprehensive maritime financial ecosystem.
Associate professor Nguyen Huu Huan, vice chairman of VIFC-HCMC, said: "Ports such as Can Gio and Cai Mep-Thi Vai are transshipment hubs for cargo flows – VIFC-HCMC must become the transshipment hub for capital flows serving Vietnam's maritime economy.”
