HCMC lifts inter-district delivery ban, but formalities remain onerous

A number of shopping and delivery applications such as Grab, Gojek, Be, and ShopeeFood all said they had resumed inter-district shipping on September 16.

Many customers paid delivery companies and received confirmation of the order, but saw their orders canceled. Delivery people complained that the procedures to operate remain complicated.

Businesses are also again allowed to deliver their own goods, but only within a district, and their staff need to get tested for Covid-19 every two days.

Tan, a deliveryman in Tan Phu district, said he could not find his information on the "Shipper Lookup" portal of the city's Industry and Trade Department and could not get a Covid test.

"I contacted the company, but the staff told me to wait for the system to be fixed. This is my job and livelihood. How can I wait forever?" He has been at home, unemployed, since July and spent all his savings.

There were more such bureaucratic issues preventing delivery people from working.

Delivery company Loship's believed that the number of its shippers may be equal to 50 percent that of the prior-pandemic period, but there could still be a shortage because many workers hailing from elsewhere have returned home.

Loship said some 8,000 shippers are working in HCMC.